Ten-week-old Willow Tremblay is okay, but her mother Nichola Hudson has suffered a few bumps and bruises after they were struck in a St. Albert crosswalk last week.
The two were crossing Hebert Road at Sunset Boulevard last Friday evening – Hudson pushing a stroller and walking her big English mastiff puppy – when a turning car struck them.
“I thought, hang on he’s not stopping. He’s coming toward me,” she said. “In a split second I pushed the stroller as far from me as I could, and kind of turned, and ended up on the hood of the vehicle.”
According to St. Albert RCMP, the report came in just before 7 p.m. Police determined the 21-year-old male driver of a 2001 red Chevrolet Malibu was leaving the parking lot beside the Tim Hortons at around 10 km/h. He made a left turn westbound onto Hebert, and collided with a 34-year-old woman pushing a stroller.
In the immediate aftermath, Hudson said she was “hysterical” and was just thinking of her baby.
“He’d knocked the stroller over, and the baby actually came out of the bassinet in the stroller,” she said.
While the incident itself is somewhat of a blur, she said the reaction and support she got from passersby speaks volumes about St. Albertans.
“There were 10 or 15 people who stopped to help, or called an ambulance,” she said. “I was obviously hysterical, but they were there to calm me down and offer help. They were all amazing.”
The mother and daughter were taken to the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton, where they were released later that evening. She said Willow appears to be no worse for wear, although she will have to wait for the swelling in her knee to go down before doctors will know if she needs further attention.
She added that her dog, who ran away after the collision, was found that evening in a backyard not far away.
“He’d actually tried to find his way home, so he was only two blocks away from home,” Hudson said. “The dog was fine.”
Police have ticketed the driver with failing to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk, which carries a $776 fine under the provincial Use of Highways and Rules of the Road Regulation.
Cpl. Laurel Kading said in a media release that while neither alcohol nor weather were factors in the collision, the angle of the sun may have interfered with the driver’s vision at that time.
“Drivers must always exercise extreme caution, especially when visibility is reduced by snow, rain or even sunlight,” she said. “Drivers must always check intersection crosswalks for pedestrians before starting to drive, especially when turning.”
