Sir: So much to process. So much to be thankful for. If I had any doubt about the relevance of holding another Build the Barrier Town Hall meeting this past week after Minister Kathryn McGarry’s announcement on Monday, they were erased by 9 a.m. Wednesday morning (Feb. 7).
That’s when I started seeing reports of multiple collisions, closures and median entries on Highway 401 in C-K. Little did I know (although perhaps I should have assumed), a good friend who is a very experienced OPP officer was in the thick of it – too thick as it turns out. After a transport did not move over for the officer’s cruiser during the Hwy. 401 chaos of that morning’s blizzard, a chain reaction of collisions occurred, resulting in the officer being struck by another truck (this time a pickup).
Thankfully, his injuries were not severe and he is out of hospital. But the outcome could have been so much different by a matter of inches.
I heard about this terrifying close call on my way to London for Jeff Yurek MPP Elgin-Middlesex-London‘s Town Hall. If that didn’t reinforce the need for a concrete median barrier already, I watched as Kathleen, a Carnage Alley widow, bravely share her pain, and photos of her husband’s transport truck, pulverized by another transport in a crossover collision.
I then met Chief Dan from the Dutton-Dunwich Fire Department, whose entire team of 18 first responders were at the scene of the crossover collision that took the lives of our beautiful Sarah & Freya back in August. Chief Dan spoke to the full room through his own tears about how in his 30 years of being in the DDFD he will never forget that day in August when that truck crossed the barrier and shattered so many lives, his own team included.
How do you share your gratitude to someone like him, the man who rescued Freya’s big brother? Words just do not suffice.
Chief Dan said to us: “If you are not afraid of driving on the 401 here, you should be.” This from a man who has been responding to crossover collisions in Carnage Alley for three decades.
I then watched as Freya’s grandma and aunt met Chief Dan for the first time.
These are scenes none of us could have imagined less than six months ago. But here we are.
And finally, on our way home to Chatham, we witnessed yet another car enter the median, while I called OPP dispatch for help, while almost being sideswiped by a transport who veered off the road and over-corrected.
These aren’t made-up anecdotes that are randomly occurring. These are incidents happening every single day, multiple times a day, here in Carnage Alley. This is why we will continue to fight. We now have a promise from the provincial government to finally do something about this absolutely absurd situation we find ourselves in on Canada’s busiest highway.
I don’t want to lose any more friends, I don’t want to call 911 for any more median crossovers, I don’t want to see any more OPP officers at risk, or volunteer firefighters and EMS fighting PTSD because they’ve had to work a scene where a five-year-old girl and her beautiful mother have died. I don’t want to do or see any of this, anymore. So we’re pushing on. This is so NOT over. In fact, it’s just the beginning.
Alysson Storey
Rondeau
