Driver who killed girl gets jail term
ST. PAUL, ALTA..• Sherry Wolitski imagines her 11-yearold daughter sitting in the back of her Grade 6 class and wonders about the final moment of her life.
She pictures a minivan crashing through a large window and brick wall of a rural Alberta school before it dives into the lowerlevel classroom. The vehicle pins Megan underneath her desk.
The mother says it had to be cut apart before the girl could be freed and rushed to an Edmonton hospital. She died there the next day.
“Did she see the van? Did she feel pain?” Ms. Wolitski asked in court Thursday. She
Did she see the van? Did she feel pain?
said she’s haunted by the questions and the repeating scene in her mind.
“My heart aches every day for my daughter.”
Another student, Maddie Guitard, received a major brain injury as a result of the October 2012 crash. But she remains in a vegetative state and is unlikely to recover.
A third girl, Angelina Luce, has had to learn to walk and feed herself again. She recently went back to school full-time.
Their parents stood up in court and asked: How could this happen? Their children were just sitting in school. They were supposed to be safe.
What they heard was the van’s driver, Richard Benson, 47, had a seizure while behind the wheel.
He had just dropped two of his children off at schools nearby and blacked out as he was driving home down a back alley. His van sped down more back lanes and crossed five streets before slamming into Racette Junior High School.
Benson pleaded guilty this year to criminal negligence causing death and criminal negligence causing bodily harm.
He admitted in a court document he had been having seizures for about a decade, but rarely took his prescribed medication. He also lied on driver’s licence applications when he said he had no medical condition that would affect his ability to control a vehicle.
Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Paul Belzil said it’s obvious Benson falsified the applications because he knew he shouldn’t have been driving.
The judge said Benson deserved two years behind bars but, giving him credit for the past year he spent in custody, ordered a final sentence of 11½ months. He also banned him from driving for life.
The parents of the three girls told court they have no sympathy for Benson.
Kasia Guitard talked about how the daughter she once had is probably lost forever. Maddie is completely immobile and needs help with everything — eating, dressing, brushing her teeth. She can’ t speak or smile and doesn’t recognize anyone.
Her mother said there are days she hopes the doctors are wrong and her daughter will squeeze her hand and be the same again. Until then, she and her husband are focused on getting Maddie home.
They have bought a new house and are making it wheel-chair accessible so someday soon she can be transferred from a care facility in St. Paul.
“All we want is for our family to be home again.”