When Jenni Bell looks out her kitchen window, she sees the backyard swing her daughter Megan treasured as one of her happy places.
Other kids might have outgrown it, but Megan, even at 13, was different. All year long, whenever she was worried about an upcoming school project “or whatever was happening in her teen world,” Megan would hop on her swing and instantly be all smiles, Jenni recalls.
But ever since a school field trip to a ski hill four months ago turned into a nightmare — one witnessed by many members of Megan’s school community, including some of her closest friends — the swing sits unused, and the lives of Megan’s mother, father and 15-year-old brother have become forever divided into “before and after,” Jenni says.
On Feb. 11, Megan was trying to dismount the double chairlift at the top of a hill at Centre Vorlage in western Quebec when a piece of her clothing — her jacket hood, according to her parents — got caught in the lift, police said in the days that followed.
Doctors told the Bells that Megan was deprived of oxygen for 10 minutes. She died four days later.
The full circumstances of what unfolded that afternoon on and off Centre Vorlage’s Lift B remain under investigation by two coroner’s services and by the local police force, which hopes to wrap up its work by this fall.
The ski hill’s owners say they are committed to learning from any recommendations that come.
But after months of fiercely guarding their privacy and shielding themselves from triggering details about their daughter’s fatal injury, Jenni and her husband Oliver agreed to speak to CBC News at the home they share with their 15-year-old son Evan.
“We chose to do it because we believe that awareness matters,” Jenni said from their kitchen table, Oliver at her side. “And if sharing Megan’s story can help raise important questions and encourage meaningful safety improvements, or prevent another child or another family from ever experiencing a tragedy like ours, then we feel we have a responsibility to speak.”
The Bell family has questions about about why Megan couldn’t be reached at the top of the hill; what emergency equipment, training and protocols were in place at Centre Vorlage; and how decisions were made in the moment that day.
“We know what happened, but we don’t understand why it happened that way,” Jenni says.
They also want Megan to be remembered for the person she was, not simply a 13-year-old girl involved in a deadly tragedy.
“She was so much more than that,” Jenni says.
A life still unfolding
Megan lived in Metcalfe, a rural village in southeast Ottawa. She loved spending time outside on her bike and was her mother’s walking partner — one of many shared interests that, along with her resemblance to her mom, had people calling her “my mini-me,” Jenni says.
Oliver describes his daughter as a bubbly presence who brought “so much happiness and energy” into the house. She took jazz dance classes and wanted to learn ballet, and when she moved from room to room she didn’t walk but rather “bounced her way through the house,” Jenni says.
The family’s home now reflects that absence. On a sideboard overlooking the kitchen table, there’s a hand-carved bell with the letter M on it. One of Megan’s teachers carved it from wood salvaged from a pipe organ to honour her love of music and song.
“Since she learned how to talk, she would sing and hum non-stop,” Jenni says.
By the door to Megan’s room, there’s the measuring chart Oliver made to periodically record Megan and Evan’s growth since they were old enough to stand.
“Evan just got measured two days ago and this is the first time Megan has missed hers,” Jenni said when CBC News visited on June 4.
Police returned Megan’s phone to the family that same day. It contains the last selfie she snapped, taken in her room on the morning of the day she was injured. She’s wearing a grad hoodie, looking ahead to the Grade 8 ceremony she didn’t live to experience with the rest of her graduating class this past Tuesday.
“Her life was still unfolding,” Jenni says. “It shouldn’t be over for her.”
Megan went to Castor Valley Elementary School in nearby Greely and grew up alongside some of the same kids since junior kindergarten.
Some of her closest companions like Quinn Elliott — with whom Megan shared matching best-friends-forever necklaces — were at the ski hill on the day Megan was injured. They witnessed parts of the incident or its aftermath, Jenni says.
“The impact on the school is large,” she says. “Many of them knew Megan very well.”
Megan volunteered as a lunch monitor, reading buddy to younger students, and school ambassador helping people in the city.
Math and art were her favourite classes. Megan told her parents that when she saw figures like phone numbers she would turn them into equations in her head, and said she was thinking of becoming an interior designer.
She got good grades, but that wasn’t what made Jenni and Oliver most proud.
“Her report cards came home year after year with the same comments highlighting her kindness, how inclusive she was, how she liked to help other kids,” Jenni says.
She didn’t seek to be the centre of attention, but could sense when someone needed a hug, her mother adds.
Jenni calls the pain of losing her daughter “unbearable,” and says the process of returning to a normal life hasn’t started.
Evan has to finish growing up without his little sister at his side, but she says the loss runs even deeper.
“In a way, he’s lost the parents he knew, too — the parents that we were before Megan died. That’s all different now.”
‘A very heavy day’
Megan was very comfortable on skis and Feb. 11 wasn’t her first time at Centre Vorlage, having taken part in school ski trips for three years, Jenni says.
Jenni was at work when she got a call from a teacher telling her Megan had been in a chairlift accident.
“I asked her if Megan was alive, and she wasn’t able to answer that,” she says.
According to police, Megan’s clothing got caught in the chairlift, the lift kept moving, and then it stopped. People tried to free her but could not — so a decision was made to bring the lift down the hill, police added.
“That piece is really hard for us to understand,” Jenni says.
Megan was not breathing when the lift arrived at the bottom, police said. First responders were waiting with two doctors who happened to be at the hill that day. They performed CPR and Megan was first rushed to the hospital in Wakefield, Que., before being transferred to CHEO.
Though hospital staff got her pulse back and her heart beating again, Megan had suffered severe and irreversible brain damage and never regained consciousness.
The family spent days saying their goodbyes, and on Feb. 15, CHEO announced on the Bells’ behalf that Megan had died.
“Those doctors and nurses, we can’t say enough about them,” Jenni says, her voice wracked with feeling. “Throughout it all, they were never cold or clinical. They sometimes showed their emotions and their humanity, and to us that was truly a gift.”
Megan’s parents donated some of her vital organs because “she would have wanted to save lives,” Jenni says.
Until recently, Jenni and Oliver avoided reading anything in the media, relying instead on the accounts of police and doctors, as well as trusted friends who were at Centre Vorlage.
“We’ve been told that we know most of what happened and that what we don’t know will only make us more frustrated,” Jenni says.
Nat Elliott was a parent volunteer that day. She’s a close friend of Jenni’s and the mother of Quinn, Megan’s best friend.
“She was the type of kid you hope your child has someday as a friend,” Elliott says of Megan.
Elliott watched from the bottom of the hill as Megan received medical attention, and later helped support Megan’s classmates in the chalet after the ambulance left the hill.
“It was a very heavy day,” she says.
Oliver says he’s spoken to some of the parents and teachers who tried rescuing Megan from the chairlift. They always tell him they can’t imagine what he’s going through.
“But I also can’t imagine what they’re going through, having been there and witnessed it themselves,” he says.
The investigations
As Megan’s parents sat by her hospital bedside with a mix of “hope and terror,” officials from the Régie du bâtiment du Québec were visiting Centre Vorlage. The RBQ is the provincial government agency responsible for inspecting and ensuring the safety of ski lifts.
On Feb. 12 and 13, the agency found an unspecified number of “non-conformities” at Centre Vorlage, it told Radio-Canada at the time — issues that needed correcting before chairlifts at the hill could resume operating.
Centre Vorlage resolved those issues by Feb. 16, according to the RBQ, but Jenni says the existence of non-conformities “has added to our questions about how safety systems and emergency procedures were functioning” on the day of Megan’s injury.
CBC News has asked the RBQ what those non-conformities were, but the RBQ said that information could not be released because doing so would likely interfere with ongoing proceedings. As for information about past inspections and findings at Centre Vorlage, the RBQ provided a list of hundreds of non-conformities of mechanical lifts at several Quebec ski hills from 2020 through to this past February, but does not reference Vorlage.
MRC des Collines police said last Monday they hope to “finalize” their investigation into Megan’s death by this fall, and that Quebec Crown prosecutors will then determine if any charges could be laid.
Ontario and Quebec coroner’s services are jointly investigating the events of Feb. 11, too. At the end of her investigation, Quebec coroner Pascale Boulay may make recommendations to prevent similar deaths.
Jenni says the Bell family is raising questions with “a deep respect” for the investigations and is not trying to draw conclusions or interfere in any way.
“We’re really just asking for full and careful examination of what happened that day because it matters not only for Megan, but for every child, parent, teacher and skier who trusts that emergency systems will be there when something goes wrong,” she says.
According to the RBQ, ski hills in Quebec follow a national safety standard for chairlifts, which includes having an evacuation plan. Ski hill owners are responsible for making sure operators and attendants are trained in those plans.
Plans must include a description of the required evacuation equipment and where it is stored, and “provisions must be made at loading and unloading stations to facilitate the loading and unloading of passengers who missed their loading or unloading,” the agency added in an email to CBC News.
Ladders are not required, nor is a reverse function, the agency wrote, but chairlifts must be equipped with a sensor that stops the lift as soon it detects a person has not gotten off.
The RBQ does conduct surprise inspections, but their frequency varies depending on the type of equipment or the number of ski lifts at a site.
Alexandre Gaboury, the co-owner and general manager of Centre Vorlage, declined to be interviewed by CBC News, saying it would be inappropriate to speculate on the circumstances of the incident before the investigations are over.
“What we can say is that the safety of our guests and staff remains our highest priority,” Gaboury’s emailed statement reads. “Since the incident, our focus has been on supporting our employees, our community, and all those affected by this tragedy, while continuing to cooperate fully with the investigative authorities.
“We remain committed to learning from the findings of the investigations once they are complete and to carefully reviewing any recommendations that may result from them.”
“Our hearts remain with Megan’s family, friends, classmates and everyone affected by this tragic loss,” Gaboury added in the statement.
A memorial has been set up at the base of Centre Vorlage where a 13-year-old was fatally injured in a ski lift incident last week. The hill has reopened, but as CBC’s Anchal Sharma reports, questions remain about how it happened.
After a six-year-old girl died after being dragged by a T-bar lift during a 2023 ski lesson in Saint-Côme, Que., a provincial coroner called on the association that represents Quebec ski areas to “enhance” the training of ski lift operators and attendants.
Yves Juneau, the president of the Association des Stations de ski du Québec (ASSQ), said that recommendation led to the development of a new and improved training program that is now available to all Quebec ski areas.
He added that ski hills are already planning for this winter, and that when it comes to Megan’s death, “we want to put forward solutions to make sure that this kind of accident can never, ever happen again.”
The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board declined CBC News’s request for an interview but said via email that it anticipates “continued opportunities for students to engage in skiing.”
Honouring Megan
In Metcalfe, the support Megan’s family has received since her death has been unbelievable, Jenni says.
Sports teams soon began wearing ribbons of purple — one of Megan’s favourite colours — while residents lit up their homes in a similar shade.
Some of those lights are still casting parts of Metcalfe in a purple glow today.
There was a meal train for the Bells, almost too many condolence cards for the family’s table to contain, and last week, a Canadian Blood Services donation campaign in Megan’s memory that collected 99 units of blood in Greely alone.
“When a child dies in the way that Megan died, it’s just not the right order of things. And people feel that,” Nat Elliott says.
It’s still not easy, though. Jenni says she is struggling. She has trouble sleeping and focusing on even simple tasks, finds it hard to be around people, and feels like her central nervous system is “on overload” all the time.
“Nothing makes sense or feels safe anymore,” Jenni says. “Most of the time I just wanna be alone in my grief, but I’m getting help and support.”
“It brings us comfort that people are still remembering Megan,” she adds.
In early April, Elliott started a campaign to raise money for a public swing set in Megan’s memory. People have contributed over $65,000, and the hope is to break ground next spring at Joe Rowan Park in Metcalfe, Megan’s favourite neighbourhood park.
Not just a swing set, but a bench where parents can watch.
“A place where other kids and even adults could go to, to swing their worries away,” Jenni says.
