COQUITLAM – A mother of four who died Saturday when she was struck by a hit-and-run driver while helping at the scene of a car crash is being remembered by neighbours as a pillar of her community.
“She was a fantastic person, a fabulous mother, daughter and friend,” said a sombre Joe Digiandomenico, who lived next door to Charlene Reaveley, 30, in a tight-knit Port Coquitlam neighbourhood.
“She was a key figure here in the neighbourhood.”
Reaveley died early Saturday morning alongside a 26-year-old woman when the two were struck by a hit-and-run driver. That driver, a 37-year-old Coquitlam man, was arrested Sunday afternoon and is scheduled to appear in Port Coquitlam Provincial Court today.
Dennis Hucal, who lives across the street, said Reaveley was like a second mother to all the children on the street.
“The kids in the neighbourhood, she’d take them over like they were her own.” he said. “They’d play in the yard, she’d feed them. Even if she didn’t know the kids, she treated them like they were her own.”
The incident began around 12:25 a.m. on Saturday when a Nissan Pathfinder SUV hit a concrete barrier at the intersection of Pitt River Road and Lougheed Highway and spun around, leaving the 26-year-old female driver and her 28-year-old boyfriend shaken but not seriously injured, according to Coquitlam RCMP Staff Sgt. Mark McCutcheon.
Reaveley and her husband witnessed the accident and crossed the highway to help the victims, McCutcheon said.
Reaveley was standing outside the vehicle on the passenger side helping the other woman when a white 1995 Jeep Grand Cherokee side-swiped the Pathfinder, instantly killing the two women.
That driver fled the scene. His vehicle was abandoned a few kilometres away, in Cape Horn. Police would not say Sunday whether they had located him or if he had turned himself in.
The boyfriend was taken to Royal Columbian Hospital with leg and head injuries. McCutcheon said Reaveley’s husband, who witnessed the accident, is “terribly distraught.”
“He is working with victim services but obviously he is not doing well,” McCutcheon said. “The officers who were on the scene are also getting counselling. They were pretty shaken up.”
The couple has four children between the ages of 18 months and 10 years old.
More than a dozen bouquets of flowers and a large teddy bear marked the Coquitlam intersection on Sunday.
A piece of a tail light could be seen next the concrete barriers, three of which had been shifted by the force of the impact.
A steady stream of friends, family members and strangers stopped by to pay their respects at the growing makeshift memorial.
Laurie Case, who saw Saturday’s aftermath and stopped to help, cried as she placed flowers at the site.
“This is something I will never forget,” said a tearful Case, who was heading home at the time and came across the scene before paramedics arrived.
“I’ve never seen something so violent,” she said. “It was a tragic death, but it was a violent death.
“My heart goes out to all the families. My heart goes out to [Reaveley’s] husband. No one should ever have to see what he saw that night.”
Digiandomenico is setting up a trust fund in Reaveley’s name at the Bank of Nova Scotia at 2541 Shaughnessy St. in Port Coquitlam.
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