Tales of heroism in fatal crash

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/10/2007 (6575 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Strangers pulled a young girl from a burning vehicle on Friday night and then worked valiantly but, ultimately, in vain to free her parents from the fiery wreckage.

Headingley residents Wayne Adair, 41 and Serena Adair, 37, burned to death in the front seat of their pulverized Cadillac SUV, struck minutes earlier by a suspected drunk driver just west of Winnipeg on the Trans-Canada Highway.

Friends and family members confirmed the couple died at the scene, located three kilometres west of the Perimeter Highway on a historically dangerous stretch of the Trans-Canada that has no median.

“They were amazing people to know,” said relative Andy Babiak, who wanted to see the collision scene Saturday afternoon. “We’re just shocked. It’s a tragedy and it’s surreal at this point. We just had Thanksgiving dinner with them on Monday and now they’re gone.

“They loved their family and loved their daughters,” his wife, Katie, said. “They were just a picture-perfect family.”

They couple also left behind one teenage daughter.

Their nine-year-old daughter Ainsley was rescued through the rear window, while witnesses frantically tried to break the vehicle’s side windows with a fire extinguisher to get the couple out.

The driver of a second vehicle, who investigators believe might have caused the horrific crash, was also seriously hurt and later died in hospital. His family has asked RCMP not to release his name.

RCMP believe speed and alcohol may have been contributing factors.

The collision happened around 8:30 p.m. when a car travelling east side-swiped a Red Rider taxi carrying four people from Dauphin, careened across the highway into oncoming, westbound traffic and struck the Cadillac carrying the Adair family.

Both vehicles erupted in flames.

Jacquie Hockin said she and her husband, Blair, were returning home to Portage la Prairie when the crash occurred just ahead of them.

While Blair Hockin rushed to help the driver of the car, others were trying to get the husband and wife from the smashed vehicle.

“Both vehicles were on fire,” she said. “They were trying so hard to get those people out. It was like a huge ball of flames went up.

“… But there was nothing we could do. People were risking their lives and doing what they could do. It was just too far gone.”

Blair Hockin said initially he didn’t even know the driver of the car was still in the burning vehicle.

“The was so much smoke,” he said. “I reached in and thought it was a cushion, but a woman said a person is still in there so I went back in. He was slumped on the centre armrest. The dash was folded on top of him so I ripped it out. I cut my hand.

“I had his head and shoulders out and when another guy grabbed him I went back in to get his feet and legs out. They were caught.

“It was pretty scary, but at the time you don’t even think about that stuff.”

He said the sight of people trying desperately to save the couple in the other vehicle was almost too much to bear.

“They must have used 20 fire extinguishers… ,” he said. “The flames were 20 feet high — they were almost touching the hydro lines. People kept running over with fire extinguishers, but a little one-pound fire extinguisher doesn’t do too much.”

A handful of Winnipeg reservists on their way from Winnipeg to CFB Shilo were among the motorists who stopped at the crash scene to help. Four soldiers from the Royal Winnipeg Rifles provided first aid to the driver of the car and then joined others in trying to free the Adairs from their burning SUV.

A witness said it might have been one of the green-clad soldiers who rescued Ainsley Adair.

Others were overwhelmed by motorists’ efforts to save the couple.

Crystal Whitehead and Stacey Titterton, employees at Steve and Niki’s Restaurant on the Trans-Canada, said they were walking across the parking lot when they heard the crash just a few metres down the road.

“I looked and I saw two cars burning,” Whitehead said. “They were trying to pull them out for so long and they just couldn’t. The whole car was on fire. It spread so fast. The people who were trying to save them were risking their lives. One gentleman was pushed back when it exploded and then after they went back and kept trying.”

Titterton said there were several people trying to help the couple.

“They tried getting the parents out, but because of the airbags and the seatbelts, they were caught. They were trying to get them out, but they couldn’t.”

Saturday afternoon, the Adairs’ grief-stricken family gathered at their home in the Headingley neighbourhood of Breezy Bend Estates.

They politely refused comment.

It’s believed both Wayne and Serena Adair worked for Jim Gauthier Chevrolet Cadillac on McPhillips Street.

Staff at the dealership also declined to comment Saturday.

Beer bottles, cans and a preserved Cadillac emblem lay strewn across a ditch close to the crash site. Incinerated remnants of a car tire and paramedics’ gloves were scattered on the opposite side of the highway.

By late afternoon, a makeshift memorial to the deceased couple had been placed against the bottom of a Stop for School Bus sign post at the scene, including several flower bouquets and cards of remembrance.

A card with one of the bouquets said, “You will always be in my heart. I will miss you so much.” In the corner of the card was a drawing of an angel.

Neighbours of the Adair family said they were a friendly couple who went all out at Christmas to decorate their lawn.

“It’s just so tragic,” said one neighbour, who asked not to be named. “I think about it every minute. They were very, very nice people. They had a whole lifetime ahead of them.

“Thank God for the person who rescued their child,” the neighbour added. “That would have been another human gone if not for that person. Someone took their own life into their hands and saved her.”

The neighbour said Wayne Adair had appeared before the RM of Headingley council earlier this year to ask for speed bumps along the street to make the neighbourhood safer for children.

Headingley Reeve Wilf Taillieu said the collision may be the catalyst to get the province and the federal government to finally put a divider up on the stretch of the Trans-Canada highway between Headingley and Winnipeg.

He said Headingley has been working to get a divider installed since the mid-1990s, but neither the province nor the federal government has moved ahead since an agreement was signed in 2001.

He said most of the accidents that occur are either very serious or fatal accidents, and typically happen when a car gets rear-ended trying to turn left on an intersection and is pushed into oncoming traffic.

“It’s a dangerous stretch of highway,” Taillieu said. “We just can’t get the (government) to move on this thing.”

Members of the Adair family have asked the media to respect their privacy.

■ jen.skerritt@freepress.mb.ca

■ kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca