Cambridge mom looks for train solution
Posted Oct 1, 2010 03:12:53 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The fight against train delays in Cambridge has made its way to Facebook. The page “Train Changes for Benjamin” was started three days ago and already has more than 1,300 followers.
The site was the brainchild of Jackie Santos and her husband, Mike Munch. The Cambridge residents lost their son this past summer when he drowned in a backyard pool. The ambulance carrying two-year old Benjamin to hospital on July 3rd was delayed for 8 minutes by a train on Concession Road.
Jackie says it typically takes her two minutes to make the trip from home to hospital and she started the Facebook page so others wouldn’t have to face the same delay in an emergency.
“I kind of feel that it needs to be done in Ben’s honour,” Santos explains in an interview with 570 News. “Maybe that was the lesson we all had to learn from his life. Hopefully, a change will be made and save somebody else.”
Work is slated to start this winter on a $20-million bridge that will carry traffic on Hespeler Road over the tracks at the congested Delta. Municipal and rail officials have also met to discuss communication options that could make it possible to connect railway workers with emergency services personnel.
“I don’t want to run them (the trains) out of town. That’s not my idea,” Santos insists. “I just want to know that people in our neighbourhood, when they have to get to the hospital, there’s no chance that they’ll get delayed.”
Santos admits that she may never know with any degree of certainty whether the delay was a factor in her son’s death. But she is encouraged by positive conversations with Cambridge mayor Doug Craig and MP Gary Goodyear. Not to mention the more than 1,300 online supporters.
“It makes it a little easier knowing that everybody is behind us,” Santos says.
