Calgary family’s vacation ends in tragedy on Texas highway
Three generations of a family were on their way to visit relatives in Houston last week when their minivan and a semi-truck collided head-on, killing three and injuring four others.
Texas authorities say the van carrying six members of the Minhas family from Calgary appears to have drifted into oncoming traffic Saturday morning northwest of Amarillo.
Upinderjit Minhas, who was driving, died in hospital, as did his six-year-old son Mehar Partap. The man’s mother, Nirmal, 68, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Minhas’s wife, Jasleen, and daughters Mehakdeep, 10, and Japuleen, 8, were taken to hospital. The mother and her eight-yearold suffered non-life-threatening injuries and the girl was released.
The eldest daughter was gravely injured with broken bones all over her body and remains in hospital in Lubbock, Tex.
The 57-year-old truck driver was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
“It’s very hard to accept this,’’ Harcharan Parhar, whose brother-in-law is married to one of Upinderjit Minhas’s sisters, said Tuesday.
The family was in Texas to visit Jasleen Minhas’s parents in Houston, Parhar said.
Upinderjit Minhas would have turned 39 on Tuesday, said Parhar. Minhas came to Canada from India when he was a teenager and studied at DeVry University in Calgary.