No charges for driver connected to fatal Hamilton snowplow collision

No charges will be laid after months of investigation into a fatal collision on the Red Hill Valley Parkway this past winter.

In a media release on Wednesday, Hamilton police said the Collision Reconstruction Unit has determined that the legal threshold required to lay a charge was not met. The incident occurred on Jan. 17, causing the death of a 67-year-old man.

Hussein Hassoun was driving northbound on the Red Hill at about 6:30 a.m. that morning during a massive snowstorm that dumped almost 50 centimetres of snow.

Police say his vehicle became stuck in the snow at the side of the road near the Queenston Road Bridge and when Hassoun got out of his vehicle to check for external damage, he and his vehicle were struck by a snowplow.

The snowplow did not stop at the scene of the collision and kept driving.

Hassoun was transported to Hamilton General Hospital in serious condition just before 7 a.m. after he was discovered by a passerby. Despite undergoing multiple surgeries and an induced coma, he died from his injuries 12 days later.

He was identified by his son, Mohamad Hassoun, in a post on Facebook following his death.

“My family and I need your help to make sure that someone is held accountable for my father’s death,” he wrote at the time.

Police say the evidence suggests the snowplow driver wasn’t aware he hit the man or the vehicle when the collision happened.

It was Hamilton’s second motor vehicle death of 2022.