Canada Day crash ‘parent’s worst nightmare,’ judge tells accused
Hamilton driver sentenced to two years in jail for high-speed Wainfleet accident in 2022
When her frantic parents arrived at the hospital, they were initially relieved their daughter had escaped a traumatic high-speed Canada Day crash with only a broken leg.
That relief in 2022, however, quickly turned to horror.
The 18-year-old suffered a postsurgery embolism that resulted in a stroke and she was placed in a medically-induced coma for nine days.
Complications arose and it was unknown if the teen would survive.
At one point, the family’s parish priest was called in to anoint the victim.
“What happened is gut-wrenching,” Judge Cameron Watson said in an Ontario Court of Justice in St. Catharines on Wednesday.
“When parents receive a call that their child has been in a car crash, it’s horrific. I am a father and what happened here is my worst nightmare.”
The man behind the wheel that fateful day, 21-year-old Connor Allan of Hamilton, was sentenced Wednesday to 12 months behind bars on two charges of dangerous driving causing bodily harm.
“I can’t erase what Connor did that day,” Watson said.
“If I had the ability to do so you can rest assured I would do it. I am just a man who wears a sash and I have to make a decision here.”
The judge said the scope of the tragedy cannot be “measured or balanced” by a sentence.
“No sentence that I give is a substitute for a broken body or a broken mind.”
He said the sentence proposed by the Crown and defence was “morally inappropriate but legally appropriate.”
On July 1, 2022, court heard, Allan, then 19, was driving at a high rate of speed on Highway 3 in Wainfleet when he failed to negotiate a curve in the road.
The vehicle entered a ditch and struck a tree before rolling over and coming to rest on the front lawn of a rural home.
None of the vehicle’s occupants, all residents of Hamilton, had been wearing seatbelts.
According to Ontario Provincial Police, the vehicle had been travelling at more than 130 km/h in a 50 km/h zone.
Assistant Crown attorney Gordon Akilie described the “unfathomably reckless” speeds as a “recipe for disaster.”
“The events were so patently unnecessary. It’s chilling to think how preventable this tragedy was.” The judge agreed.
“It was inevitable that there was going to be a disaster,” Watson said.
“It was a perfect storm of bad decisions and those bad decisions have irreparably harmed the victims and their families.”
Court heard the young woman, who later suffered a stroke, had been ejected from the vehicle upon impact.
In the ambulance en route to the hospital she screamed for her parents.
“I was worried I was going to die and wanted to say goodbye,” she said. “My parents deserved a goodbye from their only child.”
More than a year and a half after the crash that almost claimed her life, the young woman told court she is not the same person she once was.
“I struggle to experience positive emotions,” she told the judge. “I question if I want to be here.”
Her friend, a 20-year-old woman, was trapped inside the mangled wreckage.
“I woke up in the ICU and wondered what had happened,” she said.
“I couldn’t feel my legs.”
She sustained multiple injuries, including two broken vertebrae, and was paralyzed from the waist down.
“I was told I would be using a wheelchair for the rest of my life,” she said. “I have worked really hard to prove them wrong.”
Today, she is able to use a walker for short distances, but must still rely on the wheelchair. She had spent 14 years in gymnastics. Today, she plays wheelchair basketball.
“My feelings about myself are very negative,” she said. “The hardest part for me is trying to accept my life now.”
She said she blames herself for getting into the car that day, even though she knows there was no way she could have predicted the outcome.
Two 20-year-old men also sustained non life-threatening injuries in the crash.
The judge said young people often feel invincible when driving, and the crash should act as a stark reminder that no one is invincible.
“Bones do break. Brains do get injured. Organs need to be removed and limbs do get severed. That is the tragedy of this case.”
Defence lawyer Jeffrey Manishen told court his client, who had no prior criminal record, was also ejected from the vehicle and sustained serious injuries including a fractured pelvis and ruptured spleen.
“Otherwise good people’s lives have been destroyed, including Connor’s,” the judge said.
“We’re not dealing with a situation where we have a gang member toting a gun and selling fentanyl to people. What we have here are good young people with their lives in front of them and their lives have taken an irreparable detour for the worst.”
Court was told Allan had volunteered to be the designated driver that night and drive the group to a quarry to celebrate Canada Day.
“(Designated drivers) are supposed to be the safest person in the vehicle,” the judge said. “That was not the case here.”
In addition to the jail sentence, Allan was also banned from driving for two years.