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Impaired-driving charges laid in pedestrian crash

Woman, 19, was pinned beneath truck following collision on Cardinal Avenue on Feb. 1
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A 19-year-old woman was transferred into an air ambulance after she was pinned beneath a pickup truck following a collision on Feb. 1 on Cardinal Avenue.

A man has been charged with impaired driving offences in relation to a crash earlier this year in which a 19-year-old woman was struck and pinned by a pickup truck.

Sean Garrett Duffy, 30, has been charged with impaired driving causing bodily harm, dangerous driving causing bodily harm, and failure to stop at an accident.

Emergency responders were called to the 30700 block of Cardinal Avenue – near Highstreet mall in west Abbotsford – on Feb. 1 for a report that an eastbound truck had hit a pedestrian on the sidewalk.

Police, fire crews and paramedics arrived to find a young woman pinned under a pickup. They, and several local citizens,worked to free the woman from beneath the vehicle.

She was taken to hospital by air ambulance with serious injuries.

While on scene of the crash, police received a report of another collision minutes earlier in the 30200 block of Automall Drive. Witnesses described seeing a large truck sideswipe a parked vehicle in the Fraser Valley Auto Mall before departing at a high speed.

Police were soon able to confirm that both collisions involved the same truck. Investigators believed that the driver had become unconscious before veering off the road on Cardinal Avenue and striking the pedestrian.

The following day, police said the woman had made “remarkable progress” overnight and was in stable condition.

Duffy is next slated to appear April 25 in Abbotsford provincial court.

These are not the only driving charges that he has before the courts. He also faces charges in McLure, B.C. – north of Kamloops – for dangerous operation of a motor vehicle and failing to stop at an accident in July 2014.



Vikki Hopes

About the Author: Vikki Hopes

I have been a journalist for almost 40 years, and have been at the Abbotsford News since 1991.
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