Inquest into New Brunswick teen's death who died in school bus incident wraps up

N.B. coroner's inquest concludes A jury in a New Brunswick coroner's inquest made multiple recommendations as it concluded Wednesday.

A public inquest into the death of a 13-year-old New Brunswick girl who died more than two-and-a-half-years ago in Dorchester, N.B., wrapped up on Wednesday.

This week, the court learned the girl jumped from the rear emergency exit door of her school bus on the afternoon of April 12, 2022. She died the following day.

It took two days of witness testimony and several hours of deliberation.

The jury of five ruled that her death should be classified as a suicide, agreeing with the declaration made by Coroner David Farrow, and gave 12 recommendations aimed at preventing similar deaths in the future.

“The jurors had varied backgrounds and they seemed like reasonable recommendations that don’t need to change the whole system in order to be implemented,” said Deputy Chief Coroner Michael Johnston.

The recommendations covered everything from improved bus safety to more supports in school, to changes within the health-care system.

The recommendations include:

As for what happens next, the deputy chief coroner says the 12 recommendations will be sent to the affected agencies and organizers in the next few weeks.

They will have about six months to respond and indicate whether or not they plan to implement them.

"I think that they're a great set of recommendations whether they'll be possible or not will really be up to the agencies to determine if it fits within their mandates and within their current safety standards,” said Johnston.

"Currently our follow up is that they respond to the recommendations and that's as far as we go because they're not orders, they're recommendations. That's the limit of our authority."

He says while they are recommendations, he is hopeful that the inquest was worth it.

"These are difficult processes for everybody involved,” he said.

“Over the last three days there was a lot of emotions, testimony, and the family goes through these as well. So, it's definitely something that we don't do for no reason. We believe in the process and believe that it will help prevent similar deaths."

The family of the girl, who will not be named by CTV News due to her age and the sensitive nature of her death, declined an interview.

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