The carnage on BC roadways continues unabated by law enforcement, common sense or a sense of personal responsibility. A week ago, six youths - children really - died when the car they were riding in crashed into a tree head-on and burst into flames. The six were trapped inside the burning vehicle and close-by residents who were on the grisly scene quickly could hear their screams.
According to one person on the scene, "The driver, who was hanging out of the car, looked like Spiderman because of all the blood on his face. He was completely black. His clothing had been burnt off his body." Authorities confirmed the driver was 13-years old.
The victims ranged in age between 12 and 16 years: three boys 12,13 and 15, and two girls 14 and 16 died at the scene while a fourth boy, also 12 years, died later in hospital.
Authorities said that because they were children, they did not carry identification; DNA and dental records were needed to positively identify the bodies.
In attempting to reconstruct the final hours of the children's lives, police said that three of the boys "decided to go for a joy ride." They took an unlicensed, unregistered 1990 Buick Century from a Surrey address. Because the Buick was unlicensed, the children took a license plate from another car and "screwed it into the back of the Buick." The keys to the car were soon located and early in the evening the boys were off on their joy ride of death. Along the way the others to die joined in. They drove along a twisty, dusty road probably enjoying the thrill but not knowing that their lives would soon end in a fiery crash at the base of a cherry tree. Could their journey into hell have been avoided? Possibly.
According to reports carried in the Vancouver Sun, a security guard who had been called to check an elementary school in Sardis [a small community to the east of Vancouver] saw the Buick with its driver barely able to see over the dash, at about 8:15 p.m. The security guard thought little of what he saw other than to remark later that "the driver seemed to know how to manoeuvre the car." The security guard said that he did not call police because he thought it "was just kids joy-riding" although he was troubled by the speed at which the Buick departed the school's parking lot.
The guard saw the car again later that Sunday evening at about 9:30 p.m. and about 20 kilometres from the elementary school. He wondered, "How on earth did they get up here before me?" He believed that the children's car had to have been driven at about 95 to 100 km/h.
Then, as the Buick was twisting and turning along the winding road its driver misjudged one of the curves and the ill-fated death car slammed into the base of the cherry tree which, ironically was full of white blossoms. White is a symbol of purity but in this case it was the final resting place of six wonderful children who wanted only to enjoy a ride. Too young, perhaps, to fully understand the folly of their desires and too inexperienced in life to completely comprehend the laws of nature.
A footnote: Some might say "What the heck, they were only kids and who cares?" Such callousness does not belong in my version of Canadian society; it belongs more in the world of a sick person such as Saddam Hussein or Adolph Hitler or Joseph Stalin. That these young, innocent souls were children should not matter one iota; they were God's children and they deserved to live a long and fruitful life. That they died at such a young age tells me that someone or somewhere along their final path, adults did not fulfil their obligation as adults to protect our children from harm even if that harm was self-induced. The security guard has to live with his decision not to call the police and the parents and relatives of the children who died will carry the hurt that they might have done more if only those keys had not been so easily obtained or if the Buick had been up on blocks or scrapped.
Perhaps the provincial government could have been more attentive to the hazards of roads that twist and turn and upon which drivers are prone to speed. From reports, the roadway is well known for inviting speeders. Could the RCMP highway patrol have made a difference had one or more of its staff been patrolling that stretch of road? Possibly.
The deaths of these children rest not solely with themselves but also, in some measure, with the community from which they came.
Bob Orrick is a private tutor of English grammar, literature, poetry and Canadian history to off-shore youngsters. His pupils hail from such places as Taiwan, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Korea and Venezuela. He was previously in international marketing, was a ministerial assistant to a provincial cabinet minister, spent a few years as a reporter then editor of a community newspaper and enjoyed a career in the Royal Canadian Navy.
Advertising Information 
