Woman left with no choice but to sleep outside Edmonton bus station

A series of unfortunate events led to Elspeth Cox, from Calgary, sleeping outside an Edmonton bus station for a night two weeks ago.              

Paul Damgaard is a drywaller working on the construction of the new North Battleford Saskatchewan Hospital. He phoned the Regional-Optimist last week with the story.

Damgaard’s partner Elspeth Cox travelled to North Battleford from Calgary to visit Damgaard. Damgaard and Cox each had a beer on the morning of Sunday, Aug. 20. Cox then took a Greyhound bus from North Battleford to Edmonton, planning to take another bus to Calgary from the Edmonton station.

Cox travelled the three-and-a-half-hour trip to the Edmonton bus station, located off Yellowhead Trail by the Via Rail station on the north side of the city. Before catching her 4 p.m. bus to Calgary, Cox said a security guard approached her and denied her access to her Calgary bus. The security guard determined that she had been drinking, although she had a drink before she embarked her North Battleford bus.

Cox was issued a bus ticket for 24 hours after her original departure time. Cox didn’t have a credit card, photo ID or cell phone. She had money on her but Cox said it was for rent and bill payments.

Cox said there were payphones at the bus station, but that she “put money into two machines and they wouldn’t let me phone.” The payphones also took Bell prepaid cards, which Cox didn’t have. Bus station employees wouldn’t let her use their phone. She asked a man at the station to borrow his phone, and he said no. 

“So I was stuck,” Cox said, and without a way to inform her family.

Cox went outside.

“I was sitting out on the lawn drinking an orange juice and he [the security guard] said ‘Are you drinking again?’ I said ‘Hell no, I’m not touching a drop. I want to go home to my family, they’re going to be frantic.’”

Cox waited at the station until it closed at 1 a.m. Monday morning. Hotels are within a long walking distance from the bus station, but Cox said hotels would be unlikely to take her in because of a lack of credit card.  

“I had to sleep outside on the grass until it got too cold then I went and slept on a bench,” Cox said.

A man who was picking up cigarette butts offered a tent for Cox to sleep in, but Cox replied that she was married.

Cox said she slept about 45 minutes outside. The bus station reopened at 6 a.m., and Cox waited there until 4 p.m. to catch her Calgary bus.

Meanwhile, her family, including Damgaard, hadn’t heard from her. Cox said her son-in-law waited for her for two hours at the Calgary bus station where Cox was supposed to be on Sunday. Damgaard filed a missing person report in North Battleford with the RCMP at around 2 p.m. on Monday.

After contacting Greyhound, Damgaard said the bus station “would not disclose any information except that she’s been reissued a ticket.”

On Monday, Cox then embarked on her 4 p.m. bus, and Cox’s daughter picked her up from a Calgary bus station. Cox contacted Damgaard and the missing person report was called off. Cox’s luggage was sent to Calgary on the bus she was originally supposed to be on, and is currently lost.

Greyhound could not be reached for comment after the Regional-Optimist left a number of messages.

Cox said Greyhound employees contacting her family would have spared her family worrying. She said the experience was terrible.

“I felt humiliated and degraded. I’m 57 years old, I have my own home, for 10 years we’ve been here [in Calgary]. We didn’t deserve to be treated like that.”

“The treatment that Greyhound is giving people is just totally ridiculous,” Damgaard said.