Cab driver in bizarre crash upgraded from critical condition

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This article was published 24/09/2019 (2400 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A cab driver is believed to have either had a medical emergency or a vehicle malfunction when his taxi struck a parked semi-trailer, injuring two people on Monday.

Unicity Taxi general manager Nirmaljit Singh said he doesn’t believe there is any other explanation to what would have caused the vehicle to drive into the side of the trailer, shearing off the top of the car, in the parking lot of Old Dutch Foods.

“It was a devastating collision,” Singh said on Tuesday.

“The whole cab is under the trailer… I’m pretty sure something happened health-wise or a technical problem with the car.”

Police said the driver of the cab was transported to hospital in critical condition, but has since been upgraded to stable condition. The passenger in the cab, a 39-year-old woman, is still in critical condition.

Singh confirmed the driver is 49-year-old Yosieph Robiel Yohannes.

He said Yohannes has been driving with Unicity since Nov. 8, 2018, but there had been no other collisions or incidents on his record. Yohannes did not own the cab he was driving.

“(Monday) the actual owner (of the cab) came in at 4 p.m. and he didn’t even know the car had been in an accident,” he said.

“We’ve been trying to call (the injured driver) but he is not answering his phone.”

Winnipeg police said the taxi collided with a tractor-trailer at about 8:50 a.m.

A forklift driver at a nearby business told the Free Press on Monday he saw the cab speed through the stop sign on Bentall Street at Mountain Avenue without stopping, seconds before the collision.

“There was a white flash,” Melvin Sutherland said. “I called my buddy here that I work with and said look at this little white car speeding through the stop. I saw it fly by.

“Why would you be going that fast?”

The cause of the collision is still under investigation and police are asking anyone who has information about the incident, including any eyewitnesses, to contact investigators at 204-986-7085 or Crime Stoppers at 204-786-TIPS (8477).

Yohannes was one of the hundreds of drivers whose name was pulled during the city’s Taxi Licence Lottery last July.

Singh said Yohannes had picked up a fare on River Avenue in the Osborne Village area and was driving her to the Old Dutch plant where the collision occurred.

A spokesperson at Old Dutch said they would not comment about the incident.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca