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Fernanda Girotto (right) alongside her mother, Rosana Girotto. social MEDIA SOURCED PHOTO

Girl dragged by car for 40m

Defendants on trial after girl was struck by two cars, dies on road

By LINA CHUNG

he first emergency re-

sponder on the scene of

a traffic accident that

killed a teenaged girl
testified Monday that all he could
see at the scene was a hand in front
of a face and a body pinned under-
neath a car.

Fernanda Girotto, 14, an ex-
change student from Brazil, was
killed after being struck by two
different cars crossing the street at
the 7200-block of Cariboo Road
in Burnaby on Jan. 17, 2018.

“The predicament was dire,”
said paramedic Wayne Mitchell,
his voice breaking on the witness
stand. “All I could see was a face
and a hand. It’s embossed in my
memory.”

On Monday in the Provincial

Court of British Columbia, the
trial began for Paul Oliver Wong
and Kai Man Cheu, the two driv-
ers charged for driving without
due care and attention.

Girotto was allegedly struck
down by a first car before being hit
and dragged by the second car.

Mitchell

underneath the car.

The indictment against Wong
said he failed to yield the right of
way to a pedestrian crossing on
Cariboo Road.

‘The indictment against Cheu
said he was driving on the left side
of the roadway and overtaking and

passing an-

was the first “All I could see was other vehicle
witness in when it was
the four-day a face and a hand. unsafe to do
trial bein: ' . so.

heard before It's embossed In my Crown
Judge Da- " rosecu-
vid St. Pierre. memory. tor Geordie
He _ testified — WAYNE MITCHELL, B.C. PARAMEDIC Proulx said in

Monday that

he checked the victim’s neck for
a pulse and then asked the driver
of the car to slowly reverse the car
while he and his partner held the
body down to try to unpin it from

court that the
Crown's case against Wong is that
he “failed to keep watch of pedes-
trians” and the case against Cheu
was he “bypassed Mr. Wong’s car

when it was unsafe.”

After Wong allegedly hit the
pedestrian, Proulx said that Cheu’s
car struck Girotto, dragging her 40
metres.

“He should have stopped,” Proulx
said, adding that the driver should
have known he had hit a large
object.

Both Wong and Cheu pleaded
not guilty.

In a Facebook post, after her
daughter died, Rosana Girotto
wrote that her daughter “left Bra-
zil full of life, joy and dreams.”
She wrote that she hoped that
her death would make authorities
make changes in traflic signage.

According to Mitchell it was a
dark day with heavy rain when the
accident happened. A pedestrian-
controlled light was installed at
the crosswalk within two months

of the fatality, Mitchell said.

 - ian

feel
on |

An image of the crosswalk where a vehicle collision claimed pedestrian Fernanda Girotto's life early last year, taken in Oct. 2018, after pedestrian-controlled
lights installed and the flower memorial on the side of the road. GooGi£ maps SoURCED PHOTO

Langara stu-
dents have
few options
to get to
campus dur-
ing bus Strike

STUDENT, continues from page 7

Sonali Dhingra and Shradha
Oberoi, both second-year market-
ing management students at Lan-
gara, were commuting together, and
said they will also skip class.

“We won't be coming,” Dhingra
said. “We will have to skip. It’s re-
ally expensive taking a cab here, so
we're not going to do that.”

Dhingra said she will still have to
go to work and will have no choice
but to take a cab, which will cost
her $24 each day.

Unifor, the union represent-
ing the striking workers, said if an
agreement isn't reached, a complete
bus and SeaBus shutdown will oc-
cur from Wednesday, Nov. 27 to
Friday, Nov. 29.

TransLink CEO, Kevin Des-
mond, spoke to media at Water-
front Station on Monday morning

“[The strike] will
have a devastating
impact on the people
of Metro Vancouver.”

— KEVIN DESMOND, TRANSLINK CEO

about the planned transit strike.
Desmond said both parties needed
to return to the bargaining table,
“without any preconditions.”

TransLink CEO Kevin Des-
mond spoke to media at Water-
front Station on Monday morning
about the planned transit strike.
Desmond said both parties needed
to return to the bargaining table
“without any preconditions.”

“The union’s planned strike, set to
start Wednesday, will have a dev-
astating impact on the people of
Metro Vancouver,” Desmond said.
“It will be especially felt by the 165
thousand people who use the bus
every day.”

In a press conference held at
Monday, Gavin McGarrigle, the
western regional director of Unifor,
said the union will continue to ne-
gotiate.

“We're going back to the bar-
gaining table tomorrow afternoon,”
McGarrigle said. “We will reach a
fair deal, or else we will take strike
action on Wednesday.”

This strike is the first time in more
than 18 years where local unions
have issued a strike notice.

Last time this happened was in
2001, and the strike lasted for
four months.

On Oct. 10 of this year, the two
Unifor local unions voted 99 per
cent in favour of strike action.

Unifor represents more than 5,000
workers at Coast Mountain Bus
Company.

SOURCE: UNIFOR.ORG