Video evidence shows chaotic sequence that led to B.C. mother’s death

WARNING: This story includes disturbing content that may not be suitable for all viewers.

Global News has obtained video evidence from the trial of a Mission, B.C., man who pleaded guilty this week to dangerous driving causing death in the incident that left mother-of-four Kelly Sandoval dead.

It’s a video family of the victim of a tragic crash feels the public needs to see to fully grasp the devastation they’re living through.

“She really is gone, she won’t be back. And I just look at her sons and it’s just so wrong,” Sandoval’s mother Jennifer Tayes told Global News.

“The youngest was five. I don’t even know if he will remember her. What a sad thing for my daughter.”

The chaotic incident took place on Feb. 1, 2018 as Kelly, her husband Eduardo and their four children were in the 23900-block of Dewdney Trunk Road in Maple Ridge.

The court heard that when a man knocked on the Sandovals’ vehicle window saying his brother was “dying,” Eduardo rushed to help.

As Eduardo saw Travis Pare frothing at the mouth, clenching his jaw and lying on his side in a black pickup truck, Kelly called 911, the court heard.

What happened next was captured in disturbing video submitted as evidence in the case. After learning police were on the way, Pare backed his truck up, hitting two parked vehicles, before surging forward through a McDonald’s drive-thru, through a fence and crashing into a bus shelter.

2:25 Mission man pleads guilty to dangerous driving in rampage that killed mother of 4

The Sandovals’ 10-year-old son Donte was able to jump out of the way, but the truck struck Kelly as she threw herself in front of her five-year-old son Emmitt.

The initial collision is not what killed Kelly Sandoval, according to a coroner’s report. She was discharged from Royal Columbian Hospital with crutches after being diagnosed with a forehead laceration and soft tissue injuries to her right thigh.

But six weeks later she was admitted to Abbotsford Regional Hospital for multiple complications including pain, swelling, blood clots and a bacterial infection.

On March 19, she died. A post-mortem examination later revealed multiple blood clots in her lungs, and her cause of death was listed as “multiple complications of blunt force trauma due to a motor vehicle incident.”

Pare was initially facing four charges, criminal negligence causing death, impaired driving causing death, and two counts of failing to stop at an accident, but pleaded guilty to the single lesser charge.

In court on Monday, Pare read out an apology to the Sandoval family, but Tayes said she’s not ready to accept it yet and is hoping for jail time.

“It’s the first time he’s ever shown any remorse, did anything, it’s very difficult to take it in, it’s maybe hard to believe. Maybe it’s true, but it’s too hard to believe right now,” she said.

“It was criminal negligence. There’s more to the case than we’re allowed to talk about. So I was really disappointed it dropped down to one charge after there being four, and its a much lesser charge than what the original ones were.”

Tayes said the tragedy has shattered the family, who no longer gather together, and affected Eduardo’s health.

The trial has adjourned until April 20, while the judge considers sentencing.

Crown is seeking a jail term of 18 to 24 months along with two years of probation and a five-year driving ban, while defence is seeking a conditional sentence of two years, less a day, to be served in the community.

— with files from Rumina Daya