Looking for witnesses

The family of a Burlington woman left with a catastrophic brain injury after a serious crash on the 403 is hoping witnesses will come forward. It’s been over a month since the crash snarled traffic for hours near Aberdeen Avenue in Hamilton. And the woman’s lawyer says they still have not been able to get in touch with someone who saw what happened.

That crash happened just below the Longwood overpass at around 4:30 in the afternoon on September 25th. It was rush hour so many people have reported witnessing the aftermath. But nobody who actually saw what happened stuck around that day.

Michelle Muir: “She had bleeding on the brain but they didn’t know how severe. They put her into a coma an induced coma at the time. Sorry. So we waited.”

Michelle Muir recalls the agonizing hours and days that followed her cousin Emily Murcar’s crash: “For the first two weeks, 14 days, it was touch and go. We didn’t know if she was going to make it.”

OPP say Murcar was driving eastbound on the 403 when her Volkswagen Golf struck a guard rail, hitting a truck and a lawn maintenance vehicle.

She was heading home to Burlington after volunteering at McMaster Children’s Hospital.

Muir says her cousin remembers leaving the parking lot — but has no memory of the crash. “She says she remembers reversing and that’s it.”

Gary Will is Emily Murcar’s lawyer: “She has lifelong injuries. It’s a very serious impact on her life and in order to recover compensation she has to prove that someone else was at fault.”

Murcar’s lawyer Gary Will says while they have an idea of what happened, eyewitness observations can change those assumptions and help determine who is at fault: “We don’t have a witness that actually observed the moments before the crash and the actual crash.”

According to OPP Sergeant Kerry Schmidt, witnesses take off from crashes almost all the time: “People may not think that their little bit of information that they know is going to be of any value but when we get multiple witnesses coming together being able to explain what they saw from their perspectives, it’s a huge asset to us.”

It also can help the victim’s case, and for the family, bring some understanding to what otherwise remains a mystery.

Michelle Muir: “We just know she was on her way home so it would be nice if there was somebody that could give us some kind of information even 30 seconds.”

Murcar is recovering at a rehabilitation hospital in Hamilton. Her physical injuries include a shattered pelvic bone. Muir says while she is improving each day, her brain injury means she gets mixed up with things like where she is and when it is. And so while Murcar can’t remember what happened that day, family, lawyers and police are hoping someone who does will come forward.