A woman who posted a video looking for tips about the driver who T-boned her car and fled the scene last Saturday night in Halifax says she feels like she’s getting closer to identifying the driver.
Tavia Raiche-Marsden was a passenger in the front seat of her car while a friend was driving. She says they were going through the intersection at Preston Street and Jubilee Road when another vehicle went through a stop sign and broadsided her car.
Instead of stopping, the other driver took off, Raiche-Marsden said. She told CBC’s Maritime Noon that since she posted the video to social media explaining what happened, tips have been pouring in.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How are you feeling today?
Well, I’m feeling all right, the kind of status quo with some post-accident symptoms but overall doing all right.
What are your injuries?
Some of the physical injuries are probably more body stiffness, some bruising here and there, particularly on the right side of my body and that arm. But the main symptoms are related to concussion and in my head/neurologic symptoms.
Could you tell us a little bit more about what actually happened?
From the driver’s side, there was a set of headlights. And almost as soon as I registered that, oh, the headlights are there and they’re not slowing down, I felt a big impact.
My body went a little bit forward and then I hit my head on something and then my body was thrown to the right side, and the right side of my body as well as my head hit onto something. They … T-boned us on the driver’s side, which then pushed us into a telephone pole on the passenger side. And so that would be the second impact that I felt.
Unfortunately, after that I had a period where I was definitely not conscious and then a period where I was sort of in and out and my memories really aren’t very clear until I was in the hospital later.
And instead of staying at the scene of the accident, the other driver took off?
They did, yep. They took off, from what I understand, very quickly.
And so you are trying to find out who this driver is. And in an attempt to do that, you made a video about the accident and posted it online. Tell us first of all about the video. What did you say in the video?
In the video, I had described at the time what was the best possible update I had about a description of the other vehicle. And that was based on reports. There have been witnesses on the street who saw the accident and people nearby. So they had provided the police with some sort of accounts of what they thought they knew about the vehicle. And from there, I passed that along in the video that I posted.
Of course, my goal was just to help identify the person who had done it and sharing that information. So the goal was really to keep the streets safer, but also to make sure that the person, you know, could be found and that they’re held accountable for their actions so that they can’t go on and do something like this to someone else in the future.
What has happened since you posted that video online?
It’s been a huge response, which is exactly what I hoped for. But I will say it’s beyond what I expected. So I intentionally posted it across different platforms to try and get as much information as possible. And I will say that the information I’ve received, which is in the form of hundreds of tips, really came from all three platforms [Instagram, Facebook and TikTok] and all sorts of different ages and walks of life, so I think that was actually good strategy.
I’ve received information, including photos and videos, which I then posted in an updated video last night. And I’ve shared some of those in the video. It’s more clear to say now that it was actually a light grey silvery — and in some lighting it looks a bit white — Mercedes. And to me it looked to be an S-Class. And quite a few people have already commented on the most recent video to say, oh, that’s an S-Class between sort of 2005 to 2015. There’s more identification about the vehicle now and that’s a direct result of this post — the original video that I did.
I’ve also had people come forward with more information about recognizing the age, more physical description, skin colour, school of attendance of the various occupants who were in the vehicle, so that is all very helpful and none of that could have happened without posting that video across multiple platforms and so many people really caring about this issue.
We still don’t have all the information I need yet, so I am hoping that people still continue to come forward and watch the updated video. But ultimately, I think we’re getting a lot closer.
The other thing that happened after posting is that people came forward offering their stories. I had this happen to me or I had something similar happen to me and what steps they took to reach out to businesses and to gain video. A lot of people reached out with condolences or support and really just to send well wishes, which was absolutely lovely.
Have you been passing on this information to police? Have you heard from them since?
As much as we could, we’ve been trying to do that. Of course, the way that they work is that there’s one person who is assigned to the case. And so the ability to pass along some of this information and how frequently I can do that, it’s really dependent on the availability and the work hours of the person managing the case.
The driver of your vehicle, how’s he doing?
He’s OK. He’s got a few similar symptoms around headache and a little bit of the stiffness and all of that. His physical injuries are a bit more visible in terms of like on his arms and hands where the airbag deployed. … But overall, I think he’s functioning pretty well.
You say in the video the person should turn themselves in. If they don’t, how confident are you that they’ll be tracked down by the police, given what you’re doing and the work that they’re doing?
I work in medicine, so when someone says how confident are you, I don’t speak or think in absolutes. I can’t predict the future. What I will say, though, is that we’ve amassed a huge amount of information identifying the person, identifying the vehicle, identifying occupants of the car and have multiple witnesses and eyewitnesses who can sort of corroborate the story. So that leads, I think, very well to be able to track this person or these people who are in the vehicle down.
Are you able to work because of your injuries or with your injuries?
No, I’m not. So physically I could get to work, I could do the physical aspects of my job. I’m fairly confident that I would manage with that. And the parts that would get me in a little bit of trouble right now is the concussion symptoms.
When I’m at work, I need to have a really clear memory and be able to recall facts and details reasonably quickly. I’ve been singing the same songs to my daughter every night since she was born. And so far since the accident, I’ve had to put an AirPod in one ear when I’m singing to her at night because some words are not coming to me and that’s very jarring. As someone who’s used to having a very good working memory and brain, that’s been very challenging.
Another aspect is I have been having a lot of trouble even getting my bearings in the morning to sort of understand where I am. At my work, I have to carry a code pager for an entire hospital. Even at 3 a.m. and I’m in a dead sleep in my call room, I need to hear that going off and immediately register that I have to get up and start walking in a direction and be ready to handle a crisis. So if it takes me two hours to wake up, get my bearings and put five items in a bag to get out the door, that’s not conducive to practising safe medicine. So at the moment, I am not confident about doing my job.
