SIBLING’S LUNCH ENDED IN CARNAGE
IT WAS supposed to be a celebratory lunch.
The pair hadn’t planned to hit the booze.
With a potential business opportunity on the horizon, Candice Chmieluk decided to go out for a celebratory lunch with her sister Sammy-Jo at the Currumbin Vikings Surf Life Saving Club exactly two years ago today.
But a few hours later the pair had became so drunk Sammy-Jo got into a scuffle with a woman in the surf club carpark after being barred from the venue.
Staff and patrons became concerned for the welfare of Candice and Sammy-Jo so they took their car keys from them.
Patrons even offered the use of the club’s free shuttle bus or to call a cab.
But somehow the pair convinced the bystanders to hand back the keys and Candice ended up in the driver’s seat of the black Dodge Journey.
Witnesses saw the car become airborne over a speed bump after it sped out of the entry to the surf club at 5.33pm.
By that time patrons had already called police warnRunners ing them that the pair were drunk and, concerningly, considering driving.
Candice and Sammy-Jo then travelled just 2.1km in 17 minutes in the rapidly fading light.
Witnesses saw the car driving on a footpath, mounting a median strip and knocking down street signs.
then saw the car speeding along the Gold Coast Hwy over the bridge at Currumbin Creek.
By 5.50pm Candice had lost control of the car at such a speed that when it struck a pole on Thrower Dve it was sliced in two.
The car was a flaming wreck in two pieces and car parts from the crash site had been hurtled 110m from the point of impact.
Candice was pulled free of the wreckage with two badly broken ankles.
Sammy-Jo died instantly on impact.
About two hours later Candice had a blood test in hospital where she returned a blood alcohol reading of 0.202 – more than four times the legal limit.
After two years of mental anguish Candice will begin the first day of a three-month prison sentence away from her children. She has been disqualified from driving for five years.
While she will be out of prison in a few months time, her family told the Southport District Court yesterday her actions two years ago had handed her a “life sentence”.
“She killed her sister, her best friend, my sister, and her mother and father’s daughter,” said Candice’s older sister Kristy.
“She must live with this for the rest of her life. I don’t think she will ever make a decision in life without thinking about that.”