MONTREAL — A bus crash in eastern Mexico that claimed the lives of 12 people, including a Canadian woman, has left families in two provinces in a state of shock.
The woman was identified by her family as Stephanie Horwood of Gatineau, Que.
Carole Pommet Reinthaler told The Canadian Press on Wednesday that her daughter-in-law was in Mexico with her husband and their two daughters aged nine and 11.
All three were injured.
Pommet Reinthaler said she was devastated when her son called to break the news of the tragedy.
“I still don’t believe she is dead,” she said. “It’s difficult to accept, but we have to no choice but to live with a pain like that.”
Pommet Reinthaler said her son will return to Ottawa with his two girls Thursday evening, but Horwood’s body will be transported to her family in Newfoundland-Labrador.
“Her father wants to see his daughter for a last time,” Pommet Reinthaler added.
She said there would be two funeral ceremonies: one in Horwood’s native St. John’s, N.L., and the other in Gatineau.
Horwood would have turned 42 next week on Dec. 27.
“For us to have something like that happen, it’s almost incredible … that she died so young and in another country where she was going to have so much fun with her family,” Pommet Reinthaler said.
She said the tragedy has been very hard on her son.
“He’s all in pieces, he’s left alone with his two daughters, no mother any more … he just wants to come home,” Pommet Reinthaler said.