Ontario good Samaritan killed while assisting accident victim

A 21-year-old man on his way to work during the pre-dawn hours of March 3 was killed in Ontario after stopping to help the driver trapped behind the wheel of a van that had flipped over. The Victoria Harbour resident, who had been commuting to his 6 a.m. job at a construction site in Toronto, reportedly saw the van as he drove by and pulled off the road, but he didn’t notice an oncoming tractor-trailer. That driver couldn’t control his vehicle, which jackknifed and hit the young man. A pickup truck then plowed into the trailer, killing the good Samaritan.

None of the other drivers involved were reportedly injured. It wasn’t clear if speed, alcohol, drugs or poor weather were factors in the accident.

An Ontario Provincial Police Officer expressed his feelings on the tragedy and said the young man’s death was “needless.” A couple of days after the fatal motor vehicle accident, the driver of the van reportedly spoke to the deceased man’s father and stepmother and informed them that he had been trapped in the van for nearly 30 minutes before the 21-year-old, who was on his way to pick up a co-worker before he headed to the Toronto job site, stopped to come to his aid.

Following a fatal collision involving multiple vehicles and multiple possible liable parties, it could take some time for authorities to finish their investigation into the root cause. In the meantime, the family of a deceased victim in a case like this one could be saddled with astronomical expenses in addition to grief. If another’s negligence or recklessness is found to have contributed to the death, the family may have the option of pursuing a wrongful death claim against that party to recover compensation for those expenses and ease their burden.

Source: Ottawa Citizen, “Family grieves for former Algonquin student killed helping car crash victim”, Robert Sibley, March 07, 2014