The mother was in critical but stable condition at 4:20 a.m. ET on Monday and the son was stable with life-changing injuries. Police say the driver fled the scene before officers arrived. At approximately 4:00 p.m. Sunday, police said a 30-year-old woman and her 10-year-old son were struck by a “vehicle traveling southbound on Ottawa Street North near Dalhousie Ave.” “The driver lost control of the vehicle” and “the vehicle left the roadway, mounted the curb and struck the couple as they walked north on the sidewalk,” they said. After living on the corner of Ottawa Street North and Dalkeith Avenue for five years, Linda Buxton said the sound she heard Sunday afternoon of a car speeding past the railroad tracks was all too familiar. But what followed was far more horrific. “I was waiting for the second crash sound, which is usually the sound of another car being hit or the car coming over the railroad tracks very fast hitting something else,” Buxton told CBC Hamilton on Sunday. “I didn’t hear it today. Today I heard a male voice screaming for help.” Buxton said she grabbed her phone and ran outside to see if there was anything she could do to help. “Me and a few other people in the neighborhood were concerned about road safety here,” he said. “We all knew something horrible and horrible was going to happen eventually – and it seems now that it has.” He said other members of the community rushed to the scene and called emergency services. Buxton said the crash site looked like “something you would normally only see on TV”. He said the scene was “horrendous” as he approached to see the man screaming for help holding another person to the ground and the body of a child collapsed closer to a fence and a tree. “The fence came down in the bushes and the car was on the other side of the fence in the field.”
A “very dangerous” lane of road
Buxton said she could see the car’s passenger side door was open, but she couldn’t tell if it was still working, so she asked if anyone had checked the vehicle. “At this point, I wasn’t sure exactly what had happened.” Some of the other members of the community who had heard the crash and arrived on the scene, checked the car to make sure it didn’t need help from other people. Buxton said she tried to help the man who was covered in blood and was holding the woman down in the street as emergency services arrived. “Another guy who was there gave me a shirt and I tried to wipe the gentleman’s blood off,” he said, “and then the police kind of took over and asked me to back off.” When asked about efforts to locate the driver, police told CBC Hamilton on Monday that the agency was continuing to “interview witnesses and review video surveillance” and a K9 unit had been deployed to the scene on Sunday. Buxton said the area where the incident happened is a “very dangerous” lane in a family community. “If you’re not familiar with the road and you don’t know the tracks, if you’re doing more than 40 kilometers per hour, you’re going too fast.” He said the railroad tracks almost come to a sharp point on Ottawa North Street, making the location dangerous. “We’re a family community. There’s a lot of kids here.” With grocery stores and parks close to the neighborhood, Buxton said many people regularly go out with their families. “All of us in this community are saying, lately, all these accidents keep happening and somebody’s going to get hurt eventually.” The Police are continuing the investigations and monitoring any preliminary investigation. Any witnesses who have not yet spoken to police are asked to call CID Division 2 at 905-546-2907.
Hamilton is working to change road design
The city has seen several clashes in recent times. Some have resulted in a total of 11 pedestrian deaths this year alone. In 2021, there were 173 pedestrian collisions, nine of them fatal. On July 5, a 52-year-old man died after being hit by a car driver while cycling on Upper Wentworth Bridge, police said. A few hours earlier that day, a four-year-old child was seriously injured when he was hit by a truck at the intersection of Sherman Avenue and Clinton Street. In May, a DARTS driver standing on the sidewalk on Main Street West was struck and killed. In April, renowned Canadian conductor Boris Brott was killed in a hit-and-run in the city. The city’s public works committee recently voted unanimously for council to consider a comprehensive street design manual (CSDM) — a tool that would change the way streets are designed in Hamilton. A key focus of CSDM is enhanced road safety for travelers of all ages and abilities, said Trevor Jenkins, project manager for sustainable mobility planning with the city’s transportation planning team. “Road design is central to making our transportation systems safer. One road death or serious injury is too many, and working to make entire roads safe is a key aspect of what this handbook will help achieve design.”
