Woman, 59, admits guilt in drunk driving fatality

BIENFAIT A woman has pleaded guilty to impaired driving charges after a crash last summer that killed a cab driver.

Debra Hamman, 59, entered the plea this week to charges of driving with a blood-alcohol level exceeding .08 causing death and driving with a blood-alcohol level exceeding .08 causing bodily harm.

Court heard the Bienfait resident was driving a sport-utility vehicle last June when she collided with a taxi just outside the community.

Bisho Kalappurakkal, the 35-year-old driver, was killed.

A 27-year-old man who was a passenger walked away with minor injuries.

Hamman will face a sentencing hearing next month.

After the June 24 collision, Jim Halladay, owner of M& H Taxi Ltd. in Estevan, told the Leader-Post Kalappurakkal had been working for him for the past two years and was the kind of guy who made friends with everyone. “He would do anything for you. He’d help anybody,” he said.

He said Kalappurakkal was transporting a passenger who’d had a few drinks at a 10-year high school reunion.

Halladay’s daughter had also been at the reunion in Estevan. They’d earlier had a conversation about making sure everyone got home safe, and he even gave those gathering for the reunion a portion of the company’s fares that night to donate to an organization of their choice that promotes safe rides home.

“Everybody got home safe that night — except for my driver,” Halladay said last June. The crash occurred at the intersection of Highways 18 and 39, west of Bienfait, when Hamman’s westbound SUV collided with the southbound car, driven by Kalappurakkal.