Woman charged in death of Estevan taxi driver
As taxi driver Bisho Kalappurakkal provided a safe ride home to his 28-year-old passenger, who’d had a few drinks at a 10-year high school reunion, they were hit by an alleged drunk driver.
Kalappurakkal, 35, was pronounced dead at the scene of the collision on Saturday night; his fare escaped with only minor injuries.
Jim Halladay, owner of M& H Taxi Ltd. in Estevan, said 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.
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.
“The reunion went over well. Everybody got home safe that night — except for my driver,” he said. The crash occurred at the intersection of Highways 18 and 39, west of Bienfait, around 10 p.m. on Saturday when a westbound SUV collided with the southbound car, driven by Kalappurakkal.
Halladay said his company has done everything possible to encourage people not to drive drunk, and the city has also been doing its best to address the issue.
“They have more charged impaired drivers per capita than any city in all of Canada, and people still don’t learn,” said Halladay.
Wendell Waldron, community leader for Mothers Against Drunk Driving in Regina, agreed more needs to be done to deter people from making the deadly choice to drink and drive.
“Although we’ve seen improvement in certain areas with respect to impaired driving and impaired driving enforcement, we have a segment of the population that continue to want to drive impaired and are simply not getting the message,” said Waldron.
A GoFundMe page was created by the Regina Malayalee Association on June 25 to help cover the costs of transporting Kalappurakkal’s body to India, funeral costs and other unexpected costs as a result of his death. As of Monday, more than $39,000 had been raised by 661 people in just 22 hours. According to the page, the Estevan man is survived by his wife Joby, his mother, and sister. Any extra money will be donated to them.
Debra Hamann, 59, of Bienfait has been charged with impaired driving causing death , driving with a blood-alcohol level exceeding the legal limit causing death, and dangerous driving causing death. She is to appear in Estevan Provincial provincial court on Aug. 14.