The family of 50-year-old Isabel Soria, who was killed in a hit-and-run in northwest Toronto on Monday afternoon, is calling the loss “devastating” and urges the driver to surrender to police.
Toronto police and paramedics said they were called to the Dufferin Street and Briar Hill Avenue area, north of Eglinton Avenue West, at around 3 p.m.
Police said the woman was rushed to hospital in life-threatening condition. She later died of her injuries.
“She’s a very nice woman. She was working hard. She’s really, really nice — that’s why we can’t really understand what happened to her. We are still in shock,” Soria’s cousin Edna Mendoza told Global News on Tuesday.
Mendoza said that Soria has lived in Canada for 18 years and that her husband had moved here from the Philippines just a year ago. They lived just steps away from where Soria was struck.
Soria worked two jobs and was a very “active and busy woman,” Mendoza said. The day of the incident, Soria got off work at 1 p.m. and Mendoza said the two women were going to meet possibly later on at Dufferin Mall.
Mendoza was on the bus when she got a call from her daughter telling her she had to come home quickly because Soria had been involved in an accident.
“It’s totally devastating — all my kids, my family, my friends — are all devastated about this,” she said.
Police said officers are looking for a male driver, who is believed to be in his 30s, and was last seen wearing a construction vest.
The truck was described by witnesses as a silver Ford F-150, police said.
“Please have mercy to my family, just turn yourself in. My aunt, my family are just devastated now. Just turn yourself into any police station and thank you,” Soria’s nephew Bryan Naguit told Global News on Tuesday.
Dufferin Street was closed between Briar Hill and Wingold avenues as investigators collected evidence.
— With files from Catherine McDonald