Nearly a month after a woman died when her vehicle veered off a flyover ramp in Kitchener, her family is still searching for answers and accountability.
Uyen Nguyen, 38, was on her way to work at Toyota in Cambridge on Jan. 26 around 7:30 a.m. As she drove over the flyover ramp to go east on Highway 8 her SUV lost control and hit snow and ice that had been pushed against the barrier by plows.
The vehicle went over the guardrail and fell to the road below.
Nguyen’s vehicle landed on its roof and she did not survive.
On that day, Nguyen’s was the second vehicle to go over the guardrail on the Highway 8 flyover. A few hours earlier, a taxi also launched over the guardrail and landed on its roof, however that driver only sustained minor injuries.
The road was closed for several hours for the investigation and clean-up. Nguyen’s crash happened not long after the highway reopened.
Remembering Uyen
Nguyen’s brother described his sister as kind, compassionate and outgoing.
Uyen was the oldest of four siblings. Henry Nguyen said his sister was the typical eldest sibling.
“She played a big role, basically raising us from a young age. She went through the hardest time. She immigrated here with my mom and my dad,” Henry said.
Uyen was born in Vietnam and came to Canada when she was 5-years-old. Henry said his sister was passionate about learning and her career.
“She can hold her own in any conversation and she can work up a conversation with friends, strangers, anyone really. She was very outgoing,” Henry said.
On the day of the crash Henry said his younger sister got a call from Uyen’s work when she did not show up - something that was highly out of character.
Henry said he got in his car to retrace Uyen’s route, thinking she may have been in a crash.
“I told them that I was going to go to her workplace and take the path back to her condo to see if I could see on the side of the road or something, maybe she swerved off and she got a little accident,” said Henry.
Henry heard about a crash near the flyover but didn’t think it could be his sister.
“I just remember trying to peek over the edge of the ramp to see if that was her car. She had a dark RAV4 and I was trying to identify the car and I didn’t think it was hers at the time, but it was flipped over,” he said.
After a few hours of searching and calling, the siblings met at the family’s home in Guelph. That is when police arrived to break the news.
“They said that there was an accident today, my sister was involved, and unfortunately, she didn’t make it out,” said Henry. “I remember just holding my mom and she’s just screaming, ‘Where’s your sister? Where’s your sister? Why isn’t she home?’”
The family visited the crash site that evening to say a traditional Vietnamese prayer.
According to Henry, while the family was onsite road crews began cleaning up the snow from the ramp.
“In the middle of the prayer, I see snow come over the side of the ramp. I was like, ‘Oh, okay.... you decide to clean the snow now’” Henry said.
Henry believes the piled snow played a major role in Uyen’s crash and, ultimately, her death.
“I saw the pictures the day after and you see a guy standing on top of those snowbanks, and the snowbanks go up to over the rails. The guardrails are there to prevent something like this happening,” said Henry.
The day after the crash, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) defended the decision to reopen the road after a previous crash that saw a vehicle launch off the ramp. They said a consultation with the Ministry of Transportation led to the reopening of the road.
“The road conditions were in good shape,” OPP Sgt. Kerry Schmidt said. “There was obviously snow on the shoulder — I don’t think it would be reasonable to shut down a ramp when it’s a perfectly good, plowed, salted ramp. Even after the snow system, the plows are going through there, they’re pushing the snow off of the travel lanes to get those lanes open, which is exactly what we need.”
Police did not blame the condition of the road for the crash.
“Road conditions and weather conditions don’t cause crashes, It’s the driver behaviour and the actions of the driver or the vehicle that results in issues,” Sgt. Schmidt said. “Obviously, we’ll be doing a mechanical examination of the vehicle to make sure there was no preexisting mechanical issue that may have contributed to the crash. Obviously, environmental factors and human factors are other issues that we’re going to be looking at.”
This statement did not sit well with the Nguyen family.
“I feel like it was very lazy of them just to say it was driver error. There’s no accountability on their end. It shouldn’t be enough for her to just fall over the edge like that,” said Henry.
Henry said his sister was a cautious person who was often warning her siblings about bad road conditions.
“She worried for us because she thinks that we might get to accidents if we don’t know about the storm or we don’t know about the black ice,” Henry said.
Legal action
The Nguyen family is pursuing legal action and have retained a lawyer.
“There’s a lot of unanswered questions,” said personal injury lawyer Nick de Koning, who is involved in the family’s case. “The obvious big concern is the accumulation of snow along the side, close to the guardrails of the overpass that lead to a situation where a person could ramp up and go over the edge. That’s completely abnormal, a completely unusual situation.”
De Koning said they are still in the preliminary stage and are gathering information and are hopeful anyone with information will get in touch.
Henry said he owes it to his big sister to fight for answers.
“I think it’s ridiculous, honestly, that she takes all the blame for what happened. It’s just a kick in the face,” Henry said.
