Date: Mon, Oct. 1.
Source:
http://www.winnipegsun.com/News/Winnipeg/2007/10/01/4540006-sun.html A tow truck driver was killed and another person seriously injured in a horrific two-vehicle crash in downtown Winnipeg early yesterday morning.
Three people were taken to hospital after a Dr. Hook tow truck and a GMC Jimmy collided at the corner of Donald Street and York Avenue about 4:40 a.m.
The tow truck driver, 26-year-old Amanda Frizzley, died in hospital.
The driver of the SUV was in hospital with serious injuries yesterday while a passenger in the tow truck was treated and released, said Winnipeg police spokeswoman Const. Jacqueline Chaput.
Approximately 15 Dr. Hook employees and their families tearfully gathered at the scene of the crash shortly after noon yesterday and hugged, held hands and comforted each other.
"We really can't even talk about it right now," said one woman.
Chaput couldn't comment on how the collision happened or whether alcohol was a factor.
But security video from a camera outside the Best Western Charterhouse Hotel reportedly shows the Jimmy travelling the wrong way on York, a one-way street running east.
"It was going the wrong direction and then just impacted right in the middle of the intersection," general manager John Anderson told Sun Media. "You couldn't really see anything on the tape after that with all the smoke and everything."
Anderson, who handed the tape over to cops yesterday morning, said the tow truck was headed south on Donald.
It ended up on its roof in front of the hotel while the SUV smashed front-first into a row of cars parked in the hotel lot.
As investigators combed the scene yesterday afternoon, twisted metal and a block's worth of debris was scattered across the road. Pieces of both cars were strewn across four lanes of traffic and the tow truck was all but unrecognizable.
'LOUD SCREECHING'
Cops couldn't confirm whether the SUV was stolen.
"Police aren't telling me whether it was or it wasn't, but that's what I heard," said Anderson.
Perry Rubenfeld, who lives in an apartment building adjacent to the accident site, heard a crash yesterday morning but wasn't initially alarmed.
"It's not unusual downtown. But this was a louder crash, and then you heard a loud screeching as if a car was turning. It lasted for over five seconds," he said.
"It was so long I had time to jump up from my couch, run to the window, open it up and look."
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They have already set up a website for the woman who died in the accident:
http://mandy.pgesystems.com/The thing I don't get is how a Jimmy can take out a Sierra (or something like that)... the Jimmy must have been traveling at one hell of a speed.
