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WATCH ABOVE: Friends and family are mourning the loss of a Regina man who was killed after his parked vehicle was hit by a truck Sunday night. The man behind the wheel of that truck was an alleged drunk driver. Our Blake Lough has the latest – Sep 6, 2016
Those closest to 37-year-old Tanner Kaufmann are mourning his loss after an alleged drunk driver collided with his parked truck and killed him Sunday afternoon on a rural road north of Regina.
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RCMP charged 19-year-old Colby Heid with one count of impaired driving causing death.
David Limacher, Kaufmann’s longtime friend, attended court Tuesday to see Heid’s first appearance and speak to media about what he sees as a “cultural disease” in Saskatchewan.
“[Drunk driving] is something that I thought would never affect me, or my friends, or my family. Because it’s a cultural thing, we never think it’s going to affect us,” Limacher said.
“I hope people wake up and say, ‘this is enough’. We can’t allow impaired driving to go on.”
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Limacher said Kaufmann had recently gained ownership of a five-month-old, German shorthaired pointer named Macy and was out on Pasqua Street extension grid road Sunday evening to train the young retrieving dog how to hunt.
Tanner Kaufmann, 37, with dog Macy.
Alyscia Kaufmann
He believes Kaufmann was outside of the truck when the collision happened, possibly sitting on the tailgate of the truck or standing just behind the vehicle.