‘I JUST WANT TO BE AS NORMAL AS I CAN’
Van attack victim remains in hospital while kids prepare homes
On a bright and sunny spring day, Beverly Smith headed to her local library in North York to pick up a copy of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.
“I was so thrilled,” the retired librarian and book-a-day reader recalled. “I thought, ‘Boy, I’m really lucky to get this today.’ ”
The 81-year-old was walking near Yonge St. and Empress Ave. when a white van hurtled down Yonge and left a trail of carnage in its wake. Ten people were killed in the April 23 rampage. Smith was among 16 people who were injured.
Both of her legs were amputated, she sustained a brain injury and nine ribs on her right side were broken, among other injuries.
Though she survived the rampage, Beverly and her children know they’ll never return to the life they lived before.
“I have my up and down days,” Beverly said, speaking to the Star in the cafeteria of Bridgepoint Health where she now resides, surrounded by her kids, Ally Copsey and Michael Smith, who visit daily. “When they’re down, I think about what I’ve lost. And when they’re up, I think of all I’ve got to live for.”
Beverly lived on her own in North York. She’d visit the library, exercise and do yoga. Before retiring, she was a librarian at York University for three decades. Michael affectionately calls his mom “a full-time grandma,” with five grandkids, ranging in age from 18 to 4.
Beverly remembers little from the day of the van attack, but Michael and Ally’s memories are vivid.
“I just assumed that was it. Like, OK, she was involved, she’s dead. And when I opened the door, (the police) said, ‘Your mom just got out of surgery.’ ” MICHAEL SMITH BEVERLY’S SON
Michael remembers seeing the news on his phone that pedestrians had been struck and injured in North York. He turned on the television, and “they were already interviewing people in front of my mom’s building.”
He called Beverly. No answer. Then he phoned his sister.
Ally said she initially thought, “What are the chances? Come on, she’s probably in the library, she’s probably having a coffee or met up with somebody.”
The siblings both called their mother; Ally sent her an email. Michael phoned security in Beverly’s building, then 911 to request a welfare check at his mom’s condo. She wasn’t there.
Ally got home from work and “started panicking more.” She called the hotline Sunnybrook set up for people who couldn’t contact their loved ones. “No one had heard from her, it’s five hours later,” Ally recalled. “And then I thought, ‘Something really bad has happened.’ ”
“Then my doorbell rang,” Michael said. Three police officers were standing outside. “And I just assumed that was it. Like, OK, she was involved, she’s dead. And when I opened the door, they said, ‘Your mom just got out of surgery.’ ”
When asked about the extent of her injuries, Beverly chuck- les. “Do you want a list?”
Beverly’s legs were amputated. Nine ribs on her right side were broken. There was also damage to her spine, a broken orbital bone, a laceration above her left eye, a fractured right arm that still causes the most pain, bleeding in the brain and an acquired brain injury that’s made it difficult to focus.
“We’re glad to have inherited those bones,” Michael said.
As Beverly heals, their family is grappling with their new normal. She spent six weeks at Sunnybrook Hospital. Two weeks ago, she moved to Bridgepoint Health, where she spends her days socializing, gardening and watching the Blue Jays.
“It’s so nice here,” Beverly said of Bridgepoint. “Sunnybrook was great, they have great facilities and doctors. They saved my life.”
While Michael has returned to work, both Ally and Michael have taken temporary leaves from their jobs. Ally is a teacher and Michael is a chef.
“We’re very family-first,” Michael said, “and we learned from the best.”
“I think we’re still surviving,” Ally said. “And just trying to get through things.”
Beverly said she hasn’t been paying attention to the court proceedings of the alleged driver of the van. Alek Minassian, 25, faces 10 charges of first-de- gree murder and 16 counts of attempted murder.
“I just haven’t got the energy,” she said. “I’m not interested, I guess.” Her thoughts are on her kids. “To me, the biggest thing is not what I went through,” Beverly said, her voice breaking, “but what they’re going through and what they’ll go through forever. These two in particular,” she said of Ally and Michael, who are both renovating their homes to make them wheelchair accessible for when Beverly is well enough to leave the hospital.
The family has been buoyed by the Toronto Strong fund, which raised $3.4 million for the victims of the rampage and their families.
“It made the city seem very small,” Michael said. “When this happened, the city was massive, and how could it happen to my mum because there’s three million people and she was one of 26. It did shrink it a bit, to make it feel like people care about people they don’t know.” The family has received $20,000 from the fund. Their expenses since the day of the rampage have come from essentially living at the hospital, Michael said, from food to transportation to parking.
The Toronto Fund said the full $3.4 million will be distributed by Sept. 28.
The family brought on Adam Wagman, a senior partner at Howie, Sacks & Henry LLP, to help them navigate everything from handling the Toronto Strong funds to insurance.
Wagman estimates that renovating both Michael and Ally’s homes, where Beverly will split her time once she’s out of the hospital, will cost about $200,000 per home for an accessible kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, entrance, secondary exit and each doorway.
To help cover the rising health-care and renovation expenses, the family has set up a GoFundMe.
“My hope in telling stories like this is that people realize it doesn’t happen to 26 nameless, faceless individuals in Toronto,” Wagman said. “It happens to Bev, it happens to Ally, it happens to Michael. It happens to a family, it happens to real human beings.”
The family has also been touched by the kindness of strangers.
The Star spoke to Abdellah Massaoudi, who used his belt as a tourniquet on the legs of a woman with white hair and a blue jacket, after the van rampage. The Smith family believes he’s probably “the person who essentially saved my mum’s life,” Michael said.
A police officer who rode with Beverly in the ambulance visited her every week in the hospital. The police officers that drove Michael from his home to the hospital sent text messages, checking in.
Michael said he feels badly that after other incidents — such as the van rampage in Nice, France, that killed 87 two years ago — he “just turned the channel after a couple of weeks, because it was over.”
“This will never be over,” he said. “And as long as my mom’s here, it’s just, our lives will never be the same.”
In mid-September, Beverly is expected to leave Bridgepoint and move in with Michael and Ally.
“I just want to be as normal as I can,” Beverly said. “My health seems to be OK, I don’t know what other damage I have, but just to continue.”