Life Interrupted

Newspapers convey the news. This is what they do. And the news is always replete with stories, small and large, of human tragedy. It is a human tragedy any time a life is lost. There is always a background story of the deceased being special, with very particular, outstanding personality traits that made them so beloved of those who mourn their deaths. Every life is special, every individual has their own very authentic character. And when, as happens all too often, a car load of young people finds death together in a tragedy, that is profoundly sad.

Crews work to pull a semi out of a pond that was involved in a collision with another vehicle near Lloydminster, Sask., on Saturday, July 27 2013. (Jason Franson / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Six young people are now dead. They were friends. And they were out together on a Friday in July enjoying life. There were three boys and three girls, aged 13 to 17. On Friday afternoon they had gone together to a local gym. Later in the evening they were still together, and one of the boys telephoned his mother to inform her he was experiencing trouble with his car, a Pontiac Sunfire. His mother contacted a local gas station, asking that her son be extended credit for gas. 

 

She would stop by the following day and pay the bill. They had been at a friend's home in Lloydminster, a city close to the Saskatchewan-Alberta border, about 30 kilometres away from Marshall where they were calling from. The parents of one of the boys, 15 years of age, had agreed to an interview, despite their grief at their dreadful loss. 

 

"He was a good boy, never had to worry about him, was really never in any trouble", said the boy's mother tearfully anguished. "I didn't care as long as I knew where he was at." He had what she termed "free reign". He had proven responsible. If he was out drinking at a party he would always call his mother to come and pick him up. 

 

His father identified his fifteen-year-old boy. After unzipping the body bag that held his beloved child, he kissed him repeatedly. "I told him how much his sister and I would miss him. I couldn't leave him. I just wanted to bring him home with me. That was my little man", sobbed the boy's distraught father. But at 15 years of age, he was not a man, little or otherwise; he was a child.

 This is clearly a family that will be left to struggle with their loss for the rest of their lives. Multiply that five more times to include the other families of the other five young people whose lives were claimed in a horrible crash that left their vehicle submerged in a water-bloated ditch. Their families too will think incessantly of the smiles they miss so dreadfully, the infectuous enthusiasms, their children's future that no longer stretched before them.

RCMP received a call around 4:30 a.m. on Saturday. Evidently a semi-trailer rollover had occurred south of Lloydminster. The responders discovered the truck that had been hauling crude oil on its roof in the roadside slough. They manouvred the driver out of the truck, and discovered a teenager in the wreckage. Both were rushed to hospital. It took a little while for police to realize there were others left there, in the watery ditch.

They hadn't seen the Sunfire. It was completely submerged, completely out of sight. Then began the horrendous task of retrieving the bodies of the two other boys, and the three girls. Nor did the boy who had been taken to hospital survive his injuries. Further investigation found no alcohol in the car. The car, it appears, drove straight through a stop sign. And obviously, the driver of the semi-trailer must have desperately attempted to avert hitting the car.

Those niggling, nasty little details: six children age 13 to 17 out for the day together, having a good time presumably. Parents taking it for granted that their fifteen-year-old was perfectly capable of comporting himself well. Not turning a hair that at the age of 15 he was drinking alcohol at parties. They had taught him not to drink and drive. Youngsters 13 to 17 driving in the small morning hours.

Did none of them have parents that expected them to return home at a decent hour? Were none of those parents tearing their hair out with worry that their children were out somewhere long past midnight? Did none of them think that such young people needed discipline, structure and self-responsibility in their lives that would instruct them that they were expected to be home in bed at a certain hour?

The wreckage of a crash Lloydminster, Sask., is shown in this RCMP handout photo. Police say six people were killed after a car and a semi-tanker truck collided on Saturday morning. (RCMP)