Family of Brandon woman killed in crash experiences ‘extreme difficulties’

BRANDON — The woman who died in the collision involving a semi-truck east of Brandon last month was a Chinese immigrant who had worked hard to help put her only child through university.

“My mom worked basically all her life to support me, my family, she hasn’t stopped working for a single day ever since I was born,” Jiahao Zhang said Thursday about his mother.

Xiaoyun Zhang, 49, was killed May 27 after a semi-truck failed to stop at a stop sign at the intersection of Highway 110 and Richmond Avenue East and collided with her SUV.

She was an employee of the Canada Packers facility located just east of the intersection.

Jiahao said his mom’s wish was for her son to succeed in the field of medicine and to help people.

“I think that’s going to be a long journey for me and I will do this to honour my mom,” he said.

He attended McGill University in Montreal for his undergrad and is currently studying at the University of Toronto as a master’s student.

He said he’s privileged to be studying medicine and he will use the opportunity to help his community.

His family is going through “extreme difficulties” and it will be hard to rebuild his confidence to go back to normal life and studying.

Hongxin Zhang, who is Jiahao’s father, said last month’s tragedy has “caused extreme damage to our family.”

“We are only a family of three and with us being immigrants coming from China, we are extremely saddened about (my wife’s) loss,” Hongxin said as his son interpreted.

“This apparently isn’t like a small accident. It’s extremely dangerous, reckless driving through a stop sign, and we are really angry and very, very sad about this, and we’re really hoping that the driver can be punished.”

The driver of the semi-truck has been charged with dangerous driving causing death.

Brijpal Panwar, 35, was released on bail earlier this month, and is living in Etobicoke, Ont., while awaiting trial in Brandon.

Hongxin said the provincial government has “been really helpful” in co-operating and trying to change and manage trucking safety and roads.

The company Panwar worked for had its safety fitness certificate removed by the provincial government in 2021. The company was able to re-establish in Alberta the next year.

The provincial government and trucking industry leaders have since been advocating for Ottawa to create a national registry that would track bad actors in the sector, to prevent similar companies from re-emerging in the future.

The province has also made interim safety changes to the intersection, including implementing a four-way stop with flashing red lights and creating rumble strips.

Police officers are also directing traffic during peak usage hours.

The province is planning to activate traffic lights at the intersection later this summer.

Hongxin said he’s thankful for the changes at the intersection.

Hongxin and Jiahao are planning a small family event for Saturday for what would have been Xiaoyun’s 50th birthday.

“We’re going to make her the food that she likes, pick out some clothes that she likes, and just hope that she rests in peace, and hope that everything is going to be good in the future, and we will try to look further into our lives,” Hongxin said.

The couple had plans to move to Ontario to be closer to Jiaohao.

“But, it just seems that whenever good things happen in life, something tries to take it away. This year we made so many just promises to each other, we’ll go to Toronto to eat this, eat that, because I was already here and I wanted to take her to Niagara Falls, but everything is just kind of — it’s just a broken promise right now,” Jiaohao said.

The family has started an online fundraiser.

“We wanted to use this platform to enable support and help, especially for further education for me, and help our family during this difficult time, and we hope that people can look at it and be able to support us in this hard moment,” said Jiahao.

To support the fundraiser, go to: http://wfp.to/iME

— Brandon Sun