Court hears of horrific crash which killed siblings
The driver of a pickup truck crashed through a construction barrier while running a red light before broadsiding a car, killing its driver and passenger, court heard Monday.
A parade of witnesses took the stand at James Robert Farkas’ provincial court trial to describe the carnage which left a brother and sister dead.
Farkas, 44, faces two charges of criminal negligence causing death in the Aug. 2, 2017, crash which killed Ritvik Bale, 20, and his older sister Rashmi, 24.
Donald Crothers was one of the witnesses to the collision, which occurred just after noon at the entrance to the Real Canadian Superstore parking lot on 46 Street S.E.
Crothers said he was stopped at the intersection of 130 Avenue, where there was a barricade preventing northbound traffic on 46 Street from turning left because of construction in the area.
Crothers told Crown prosecutor Andrew Barg he gave a pickup truck in the blocked lane the “goahead” to pull in front of him.
“I all of a sudden noticed the truck taking off and proceeding through the red light and dragging the barrier with it,” Crothers said.
“The truck took off at a high rate of speed, veered off to the right and ran over a median.”
The pickup raced through the intersection and continued northbound, towards the entrance to the Superstore parking lot.
“It was definitely going at a high rate of speed and accelerating as it was going,” Crothers said.
“It basically drove into the side of a small red vehicle.”
Crothers waited until the light turned green and then drove north to the nearby crash site.
“I didn’t actually look inside (the red car) ... I knew it wouldn’t be a good scene.”
Instead, he checked the pickup driver, accessing the vehicle from the passenger side door and putting it in park.
As he did so, he could hear a voice over the truck’s Bluetooth system trying to communicate with the driver and told him the motorist had been in a serious accident.
“The person in the Bluetooth said, ‘I think he’s had a stroke,’” Crothers testified.
He said the driver looked “completely disoriented” and had saliva and foam around his mouth.
Earlier, defence lawyer Curtis Mennie told Judge Mark Tyndale he will call evidence suggesting Farkas had a seizure at the time.
Five Crown witnesses told Mennie they saw nothing unusual about the pickup driver’s behaviour before the vehicle entered the intersection.
The trial of Farkas, who is free on bail, is set to last six days.