A trial against a tanker maker over workplace safety is set for March 202
Janet Ferguson lost her best friend when her daughter Kayla, who was 26 years old, was killed in an explosion at Ottawa’s Eastway Tank, Pump and Meter Ltd. in January 2022.
Now, her family is sad again because Janet Ferguson died recently at the age of 47.
Reggie Ferguson said, “Tragedy on top of a tragedy,” as he stood outside the funeral home in Carleton Place, Ontario, where his sister’s wake was held on Thursday.
According to her obituary, Janet Ferguson died on June 23, 2023, which was almost a year and a half after the explosion on January 13, 2022, that killed her daughter and Rick Bastien, Etienne Mabiala, Danny Beale, and Russell McLellan, all of whom worked at the tanker manufacturer.
The next day, Matt Kearney, a sixth Eastway employee, died in the hospital.
Reggie Ferguson said that the death of his sister Kayla in a way that “shouldn’t have happened” destroyed her.
“That’s all she ever talked about,” he said.
‘Wish she was still here
In the year after the explosion, Janet Ferguson’s Facebook page was like an open wound.
She wrote about mental health, self-improvement, and how scared she was to spend the holidays without her daughter.
“Really missing you today,” she wrote to him on Christmas Day.
Just before the first anniversary of the explosion, the Ontario Ministry of Labour charged Eastway Tank owner Neil Greene and the company with three identical charges of unsafe work practices on the day of the blast. Ferguson’s voice shook with emotion as he said this.
“It’s just been really hard,” she told CBC on Jan. 6.
“I really wish she was still here,” she said about Kayla, adding that her daughter had worked at Eastway for about a year and a half and “had everything going for her.”
Janet Ferguson had trouble with drugs after her daughter died, according to her brother, but she had just recently stopped.
He said that she had just gotten her driver’s license and was eligible for the Ontario Disability Support Program.
But she was in and out of the hospital with pain, and he said she died of a heart attack.
Their father was especially upset by the news.
“We went to say goodbye to her,” Reggie Ferguson said. “All my dad could say was, ‘My baby girl is dead, my baby girl is dead,'”
Louise Martel, whose fiance Rick Bastien also died in the Eastway explosion, said that she and Janet Ferguson planned to go to the Eastway site to replace the faded photos that have been used as a memorial to the victims.
“I don’t want to go there by myself,” said Martel. “We just didn’t have the chance.”
The trial for Eastway is set for March 202
Janet Ferguson was getting tired of how slowly the investigation into the explosion was going before it was announced that Greene and Eastway would be charged.
“It’s been nearly a year. “This is so frustrating,” she told CBC on December 12.
Her death happened a little less than two weeks before it was said that Greene and Eastway would go to trial. It won’t start until March 2024, and it will likely go on for 40 days, until June.
Reggie Ferguson said, “I wish it was over so my dad could put it behind him.”
The Ottawa Police Service said earlier this week that a separate criminal investigation is still going on at the same time.
A plaque honoring Kayla was put up in a park last year, not far from where her family gathered at the funeral home in Carleton Place.
Reggie Ferguson hopes that his sister can get one.
He said, “They were very happy together.” “Now… they’ll probably go to heaven and be happy there together.”