5 dead in canada from snowstorm in the Maritimes

[tropicana]

Tuesday, Dec 09, 2003
Pregnant woman among five victims of killer N.B. storm



FREDERICTON NB (CP) - A brutal winter storm that slammed into Atlantic Canada has left a trail of tragedy in New Brunswick, including the death of a pregnant woman who gave birth before dying of her injuries.
Monica Gilbert, 24, of the Fredericton area was one of five people who died as a result of accidents during a fierce winter storm which hit the province Sunday and Monday before moving to Newfoundland and Labrador on Tuesday.

Gilbert was driving to work at the Leo Hayes high school in Fredericton on Monday morning when her car slid sideways on a slushy road and struck an oncoming vehicle near Douglas, a city suburb.

Her vehicle was then hit by another car, spinning it into a ditch.

Gilbert, a teacher who had been working at the high school since September, was taken to the Fredericton hospital for emergency surgery to deliver the baby.

The newborn girl, 14 weeks premature, was in stable condition.

Gilbert was transferred to the Saint John Regional Hospital, but died of her injuries Monday night.

"The prayers and wishes of the students and staff here are going out to the baby," said Reg Bonnell, the school's principal. "We hope she survives to carry on Monica's legacy."

Gilbert's mother, Catherine, said the baby is doing very well.

"She's a fighter," she said.

The baby will be named Emma, the name Monica had picked for her child.

She will be kept in hospital until March, her due date.

Catherine Gilbert said Monica, her only daughter, lived in the family home in Keswick Ridge, a farming community about 40 kilometres west of Fredericton.

The drive to Fredericton is along a narrow, winding road known to be treacherous in the winter.

"I had offered to drive her to work that morning but she thought she would be fine," Gilbert said. "It's one of those things that happen."

Bonnell said Gilbert worked closely with a group of First Nation students at the high school, developing a special curriculum for them and helping to improve their literacy skills.

He said students and staff were struggling with their grief, made worse by the fact that the school also discovered on Tuesday that the fathers of two of its students were killed in another storm-related accident.

A 50-year-old man and a 44-year-old man, both from the Fredericton area, were killed after a single-vehicle collision on a back road on the outskirts of the city.
The crash was discovered Monday by a passerby, but the names of the victims have not yet been released.

RCMP Sgt. Wayne Gallant said it appears the vehicle carrying the two men slid off the road and rolled several times before coming to rest on its wheels.

One man was thrown from the vehicle.

Meanwhile, in northeastern New Brunswick, a bizarre collision involving a tractor-trailer, a farm tractor and a pickup resulted in the death of a man who was shovelling his driveway.

The tractor-trailer swerved to avoid hitting the tractor, which had pulled out from a driveway. The truck lost control and plowed into a ditch, striking the parked pickup, which then hit Omer Dostie of Saint-Sauveur, N.B.

Dostie, 56, was killed instantly, said RCMP Cpl. Pat Simpson.

While the road was slushy, Simpson said it was not clear whether the weather played a factor in the mishap.

"There was some slush on the road but (conditions) weren't that bad," Simpson said Tuesday.

"The fact that the tractor pulled out in front of him was more of a contributing factor."

Simpson admitted the circumstances were highly unusual.

"It's an odd set, it's just bad luck - totally bad luck."

Fredericton was the scene of another fatality Sunday night, at the height of the storm, when 72-year-old Vohra Bakhshi died in a three-vehicle pileup on a city street. Police blamed slippery roads and poor visibility for the crash.

The storm dumped up to 60 centimetres of snow on parts of the Maritimes before stalling Tuesday over Newfoundland.

The snow, buffeted by 70-km/h winds, buried southeastern New Brunswick under a thick blanket that closed schools, businesses and grounded flights at Moncton International Airport.

While Moncton had the most snow, it did not have any serious accidents.

Police said that may have been because the driving was so bad, people stayed in their homes.

Fredericton received only about 20 centimetres of snow, and many people ignored the winds and blowing snow and ventured out on Sunday.

By Monday, roads in and around the city were plowed but still slippery. Schools and businesses were open as usual.



© The Canadian Press, 2003

-justin-

[JCT777]

It's a shame to hear about the storm killing 5 people.