‘He will answer to me’
Blind woman struck by van anxious for speedy recovery to face accused driver in court
Catherine Riddell, a lifelong Willowdale resident who’s legally blind with just 1 per cent vision in one eye, usually navigates the Yonge and Finch intersection using its sounds — pedestrian signals, the rush of office workers at lunchtime, traffic — as her compass.
But she doesn’t remember hearing the van.
Riddell was one of 16 people left in- jured when a Ryder van mounted the curb last week in a rampage in North York. Ten people were killed.
She was one of the first few people to be struck.
“I just started walking down the street, and I ended up here,” said Riddell, 67, from her window-side bed at St. Michael’s Hospital Tuesday. She has no memories of the moment she was hit.
“Physically, I feel like I’ve been hit by a Mack Truck. Which is probably closer to the truth than I want to admit.”
She usually walks down Doris Ave., a parallel street east of Yonge St., when she needs to head south from her apartment building near Finch Ave. Last Monday, though, she decided to run some errands, heading to the bank and pharmacy on the major road instead, leaving a little after the lunch rush.
“It was just the most bizarre thing. In a place I’ve known and loved all my life, in the middle of one of the most beautiful days of the spring, and somebody would just destroy it,” she said.
‘Something saved me . . . I’m grateful for it. I feel guilty that I made it and some didn’t.” Catherine Riddell, van rampage survivor
Riddell is in good spirits despite the pain and extent of her injuries. She will be in hospital for at least another six to eight weeks as doctors treat her cervical fractures of the spine, fractured pelvis, clavicle and discs, and multiple rib fractures. She also had internal bleeding from her spleen and liver, which has since healed.
On Tuesday, she wore bandages and the lower parts of her leg had deep purple bruising.
She said she’s restless to begin moving again so she can face the suspect in court. Alek Minassian is charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder, and 13 counts of attempted murder. “I will do it, for no other reason than so I am walking into that courtroom to stare him in the eye …And he will answer to me,” she said.
Riddell said she was in shock and is just now confronting the reality of last week’s horror. She said she will need counselling in order to prevent nightmares and feelings of fear down the road. “Something saved me. I don’t know what it was. I’m grateful for it. I feel guilty that I made it and some didn’t. I don’t know why that happened,” she said, her eyes beginning to well. “Sorry, I get a little … still pretty raw.”
Still, she keeps a positive spirit and is determined to get her “mojo back.” A former skier and Canadian Paralympic athlete who competed between 1980 and 1986, Riddell had almost fully recovered from her third knee replacement surgery when she was struck.
“Here I am, right back behind square one again. I have the energy to get through this one more time. I’m going to do it.”
The road to healing will be a long one for Riddell, her brother David Riddell said, but he emphasized that she will be able to fully recover thanks to the “phenomenal” care from hospital staff. Police officers also visited with flowers and cat treats for her pets, “which really brightened her spirits. It was amazing to see what they did,” he said.
And, once recovered, Riddell said she’ll be returning to the neighbourhood she loves. Willowdale is her home, she said emphatically — a place she has fought for in the past, mobiliz- ing in the community to protect arose garden threatened by city development in the 1980s.
“For me, the rose garden is a crucial issue. It reflects a standard of life that is fast slipping away from us. It reflects a little haven of peace and tranquillity in a sea of controlled chaos. It reflects our community,” she said in a 1987 letter published in the Star.
And it’s a place she refuses to abandon in the future.
“It’s not going to change my attitude one bit ... Nothing’s going to make me run away from here,” she said.