Boating crash victim had just become citizen days earlier
Two days before he died in a boating collision on Bobs Lake, 100 kilometres southwest of Ottawa, Siyeng Iv had been sworn in as a Canadian citizen.
“He was looking to travelling and seeing the world, which a Canadian passport would allow him to do,” said Sean Phav, who is married to Iv’s daughter, Kelly, and helped sponsor Iv’s journey to Canada from Cambodia in 2013.
The family had spent the afternoon fishing from Phav’s 16-foot aluminum runabout — Sean and Kelly in the back, Sean’s parents, Sun and Chhay, in the middle, Iv in the bow seat — when they decided to head back to their cottage at about 6:20 p.m., a few minutes before sunset.
“We were getting ready to go in from fishing,” Phav said in a phone call from Stoney Creek, Ont., where the family lives. “He (Iv) had just pulled up the anchor and I was getting the engine started when my wife started screaming, ‘There’s a boat coming!’ ”
The oncoming boat — an 18foot Sylvan with a 50-horsepower engine and two Americans from Pennsylvania on board — struck the Phav boat on the right bow, crumpling the aluminum and tossing Iv into the cold water.
“They came so fast,” Phav said. “It hit the bow, right where he was sitting, and hit him in the head and fractured his skull.”
The American boat didn’t stop and continued down the lake to their dock, he said. On board Phav’s boat, the family watched in horror as the badly bleeding Iv resurfaced in his life-jacket, then pulled him back aboard. A neighbour who’d heard their screams motored out in his boat to help and towed them back to shore.
At the dock, Iv, 65, was still conscious and asked to be taken up to the cottage. They were the last words he spoke.
When paramedics arrived at around 7 p.m., he was suffering seizures. He died later that night in a Kingston hospital.
Sean and Kelly both suffered injuries to their arms in the collision, Sean’s mother hurt her leg, his father suffered broken ribs and a lower-back injury.
“It’s the craziest accident that could ever happen. It never should have happened,” said Tim Marrison of Westport, a close friend of the Phavs who has set up a gofundme page to help the family. It had raised more than $4,300 by Thursday afternoon.
Iv had five children, three of whom are still in Cambodia and are hoping to come to Canada before Iv’s body is cremated. The beneficiary of the gofundme is Iv’s widow, Sovannara, and the funds raised will help with the family’s expenses and the travel costs of Iv’s sons.
The Ontario Provincial Police seized the boats to do mechanical inspections, while a specialized OPP marine collision team came from Sudbury to help with the investigation, staging a simulation of the collision out on the water Friday night.
Phav said he’s angry the Americans didn’t stop to help after the collision.
“They drove right past us,” he said. “I swore at them.”
Later, when they did come over to the dock where Phav’s boat had been towed, they didn’t offer to help or apologize, he said.
No charges have been laid, but the police investigation is ongoing, OPP Const. Curtis Dick said Wednesday.
Phav said he was told the other boaters could face charges of criminal negligence causing death and leaving the scene of an accident. bcrawford@postmedia.com Twitter.com/getBAC