Witness describes crash scene as accused weeps
Suspected drunk driver Michael Shaun Bomford broke down in tears Monday as an off-duty nurse described finding his teenage daughter dead in the middle of Mcknight Boulevard N.E.
Jan Ginther said she was driving eastbound on the roadway late in the afternoon of Oct. 18, 2016, when a westbound SUV came flying through the air across the lanes in front of her.
Ginther said she saw three bodies ejected from the vehicle as it spun in the air before coming to a rest, tires down, south of the road.
“When it came across the (centre) median it was launched in the air and started to spin in the air like a corkscrew,” the Red Deer emergency nurse said.
Ginther, who had just picked up her husband, Kurt, at the airport, said the SUV went airborne, struck the pavement and then went airborne a second time.
“That’s when we saw the ejection of three bodies,” she said.
But Ginther told Crown prosecutor Trevor Fik she didn’t see where the three individuals were sitting before they were tossed from the Jeep Liberty, and couldn’t identify the driver.
She said one body, later identified as Bomford’s 17-year-old daughter, Meghan, came to rest in the middle of the busy thoroughfare, while the other two ended up on the southern berm.
Bomford, 54, faces six charges, including impaired driving causing death in the crash that also severely injured his daughter’s best friend, Kelsey Nelson, then 16.
Ginther, who later came to know the names of all three people involved in the crash, said she initially went to Kelsey, while her husband, a former Innisfail volunteer firefighter, went to the accused’s aid.
Her husband then checked on the daughter.
“Kurt said that Meghan was gone … but being the nurse, I wanted to double check,” she said.
“I pulled back Meghan’s hoody and what I saw indicated to me that there was nothing that could be done for Meghan,” Ginther said, as Bomford openly wept in the prisoner’s box.
Earlier, another witness, Adam Bickerstaffe, described going to the injured girl’s side.
“We told her she was loved and we were going to help her,” he said.
“We said we loved her and people were on their way to help.”
Under cross-examination, defence lawyer James Wyman asked Kurt Ginther about his time by his client’s side. The witness said he spent several minutes kneeling by the accused’s side but detected no smell of alcohol. Both Ginthers said they were dismayed when EMS arrived and declared Bomford dead, even covering him with a tarp before someone saw him moving.
Court was told that among Nelson’s wounds was a brain injury that has left her with no recollection of the crash. Bomford is free on bail pending an outcome to the case.