Eglinton and Tomken - High Speed Fatality - One man dead.

This vehicle was ripped in half after hitting a cement pole at high speed.

 

First Time For Everything

I've been in the news business a long time. In almost 30 years of covering breaking news, I have never been completely denied access to a crash scene. I've spent countless hours waiting for access but today was the first time I was prevented from gathering video of a crash scene, even after the gathering of evidence at the scene was complete.

I've been to hundreds of fatal crash scenes. I've seen a grown man break down and sob like a baby upon learning his mother was dead. She had been trapped in the car for a long time. Firefighters tried so hard to free her while EMS worked to keep her alive. She was the victim of a drunk driver. That drunk driver was her son. She was a passenger in his car when he crashed.

More recently I gathered video on one side of a street as a witness told police two cars had been racing before the crash. Then I crossed the road to hear a young man swear to an officer he had no idea how the car he was driving crashed and ended up almost inside a nearby variety store.

I've spent countless hours waiting patiently in my vehicle as officers performed every detail of recreating a crash scene, piecing together every tiny aspect, photographing ever piece of scattered wreckage. I have waited for 5 or 6 hours and this is exactly how it should be. Police have an important job to do. People's lives and justice hangs in the balance. At the end of the day the job they do is much more important than the job I do.

Typically at some point after all the measurements have been taken, after all the positions have been mapped out and all the evidence tagged, the field work is done. It is usually at this point and this point only, that the media is granted access to gather video and photos before the vehicles are loaded on tow trucks and removed from the scene. This is not a right guaranteed under law. It's a sort of give and take, a partnership if you will, police working with the media to keep the public informed. 

We help them spread various safety messages like Don't Drink and Drive, Don't Text and Drive, Speed Kills,  Buckle Up and Live, to name a few. I've had officers reach into a vehicle and lift out an open bottle of liquor, placing it on top of the wreckage, a clear and vivid image that sticks with many in the community. The driver still has their day in court but sometimes it is so obvious that Media Relations Officers give interviews immediately following the crash to say they suspect drinking or excessive speed played a factor in the carnage. It's a message we all need to hear.

Of course behind every fatal collision lies a slew of devastated family members, those left behind with more questions than answers. Did someone cross the center line? Was alcohol a factor? Does the damage indicate extreme speed may have played a role? Was everyone buckled up? The pain they go through is something most of us cannot imagine. Sometimes the answers are not clear. The closure never comes. I am so sorry for your loss.

Friday's double fatal crash just outside of Hamilton was a first for me. I waited by a road block as darkness turned to daylight and officers continued to gather the necessary evidence at the crash scene. I wasn't alone. Four other media outlets also waited patiently for access. We were all very shocked when tow trucks arrived and the vehicles were loaded up, the road was swept and cleared of debris by the tow truck drivers and still no access was given the media. 

I was even more shocked when Hamilton Police Chief Glenn De Caire arrived. He agreed to an interview and used that media appearance to appeal for witnesses. Please call if you saw anything at all that might help them. My first thought was this. Perhaps if media was allowed access for photos or video and then shared those with hundreds of thousands of viewers, it may jog someone's memory. They may come forward and say "I saw that vehicle down the road just before the crash and it was doing this or that." 

In closing I need to stress I have no information regarding the cause of this morning's fatal accident. Police have said they will be checking all possible causes. It is far too early to pin these things down. Officers will be working for weeks looking at all the evidence. I will be back on shift tonight at eleven. Please drive safely. Let's not meet by accident.

Note: This is not about photos or video of victims. We do not show those things on TV. All video I gather is vetted and approved before use. We typically do not show graphic images of victims.

UPDATED: A 17-year-old from Hamilton had been drinking with friends before he got behind the wheel and ended up in car accident that killed him and a 42-year-old father of three, the teen's friends say.
http://www.cbc.ca/hamilton/news/story/2013/07/26/toronto-fatal-hamilton-crash.html

Speed Kills

I was first on scene of this horrific crash last night at Kennedy and Finch. Police say the driver was racing another vehicle and crashed. The car was split in half and the driver was trapped when I arrived.

He was cut out by Toronto Fire but did not survive.

Two Crashes and a Shooting

Two serious crashes kept me busy on the night shift. The top picture was a fatal accident involving a 29 year old woman who police say may have been drinking before crashing her car into a TTC bus. The lower picture is a YRP cruiser that flipped after taking out a hydro pole on McCowen Ave north of Hwy 407. The officer was transported to hospital but is expected to recover fully. We also had a shooting on Dupont at Edwin. In that call the victim was shot in the face and rushed to St. Mike's but is expected to survive.

Running on Empty

It was a quiet night. I already knew that gas prices were about to take a major spike. The word was they would rise 13 cents at midnight. This would happen simultaneously at every gas station in Toronto and across the province. How this was possible without price fixing is beyond me but that it another story.

People were already lined up when I got going for the night. The station on Dundas in Mississauga had cars right out onto the road. I clipped a young man who had filled his car and now was topping off a gas can. He told me he was a student who needed to watch every penny he spent. A few more clips and I’m on my way. On the cruise and listening to the scanners.

It was a fairly quiet night. A street robbery had sent a young man to hospital with stab wounds. I tried to shoot over to Sunnybrook to grab a shot of him arriving in the ambulance but they beat me there by a minute or two. City-tv was there so I say my hellos to Burt and head to the scene to shoot some yellow tape. The cops have sprinkled a liberal does of tape around a driveway on Bathurst south of Steeles, in the north end of the city. A young copper tells me that it’s nothing serious, so I head across the street to Mickey Dee’s for some grub. My damn bank card says I’ve reached my limit for the day. It scares the hell out of me as I haven’t bought a thing today and I know how many people get ripped off by skimmers and identity thieves. I try to sign on to the bank site on my Blackberry. I screw up the password on that little keyboard and lock myself out of my own account. I’ll deal with that in the morning.

I had just dropped off my tapes from the gas station and exited the station parking lot when the call comes across. A wrong way driver on the 403 near Cawthra in Mississauga has hit head on with an oncoming car. As I head down to the Gardiner Expressway I hear the first units arrive. “It’s confirmed dispatcher, we have two code fives on scene. Shut down the highway as soon as we can.” Code five is OPP and Ambulance talk for deceased. A quiet night just got busy, but no need to hurry as I already know by the time I get on scene it will be locked down. I’ll be parking at the on ramp and waiting for permission to enter the scene. That’s how it works. You either get there quickly or you are often at the mercy of others for access. Just as well on this one. I hear later that a City-TV cameraman arrived on scene in minutes, on his way in for the morning shift. He was asked to leave and refused. The cops are all pissed now. Things are sensitive when you have such a serious crash. Everyone is on edge and they don’t need cameras shooting dead bodies.

I sit at the Eglinton on ramp for over an hour. Dave Woodford arrives on scene. He looks after the media. He smoothes things over with the Sergeant, gives us all the mandatory speech about how we need to respect the wishes of on scene Sergeants and then says, He will take us down to the first cruiser on the scene, no closer than that. The victims are covered with a tarp. They will have to be moved with the vehicle and cut out at another location. The car is demolished and also caught fire. It’s a bad one.

I get it done and a day shift camera arrives to take my place. It’s now almost nine so I’m on overtime. I drive the wrong way on the closed lanes of the 403 to exit the scene. TGIF.