Investigation details events leading up to Sudbury woman's death in a collision with OPP boat

Sudbury police cleared in fatal police boat crash Ontario Provincial Police in Sudbury have been cleared in a fatal police boat crash that killed a woman in June on Nepewassi Lake.

A 49-year-old Sudbury woman who was killed in a tragic collision with a police boat June 7 on Nepewassi Lake was told to remain in a residence on an island until police returned to pick her up.

But sometime after 2 a.m., she got into a boat without any navigational lights and the police boat didn't see her "until it was too late."

That's the findings of an investigation into police actions by the province's Special Investigations Unit, which included a full reenactment of the collision. The SIU has cleared police of wrongdoing in the death.

It emerged that a man called Ontario Provincial Police at 9:43 p.m. June 6 and asked officers to come and remove a woman from his residence on the island. He said the woman had pushed him down the stairs.

But in the background, the OPP communications operator heard the woman say, "that the (man) had hit her (twice) in the face and asked whether he told the police he had hit her," the SIU investigation said.

The woman said she pushed the man only after he had struck her twice.

The OPP boat was dispatched at 12:33 a.m. to the island on the lake, arriving at 12:53 a.m. After a brief investigation, they arrested the man for domestic violence and took him to the mainland for processing, the SIU said.

OPP officers told the woman to wait in the residence for them to return.

"She was to remain at the property and await the return of the officers, who would transport her to shore on their arrival," the SIU said.

There is a recording of police telling the woman they would come back for her, telling her "to stay inside and await their return. (The officer) asked her if she had any questions, and she did not."

However, the woman texted a family member just after midnight and told them that the man had turned off the power at the residence and that her phone was almost dead.

In another text to a family member, she said police had taken the man away in "cuffs and left, told me nothing and I am sitting in the dark with no idea."

'Do I come get you?'

At 1:33 a.m., she texted the male suspect and said, "I am still sitting here in the dark wtf cops told me nothing and y’all just left what am I supposed to do now."

"What am I supposed to do?" she texted the man at 1:44 a.m., promising to bail him out and asking, "why did you all just leave and tell me nothing or why."

"Do I come get you?" she texted at 2:02 a.m.

Police were returning with the male suspect to the island not long after 2 a.m. and were 200-300 metres from the shore when the crash occurred.

The aluminum boat the woman was driving didn't have navigational lights and it's not clear whether the flashlight she had with her was visible when the collision with the OPP boat took place, the SIU said.

The OPP officer radioed in that the woman "had a four-inch laceration to her forehead, which bled. A bandage and direct pressure were applied to the wound," the SIU said.

"The (woman) was breathing but unresponsive when spoken to. The (officer) asked if an Ornge air ambulance was available. The dispatcher advised the Ornge air ambulance was out of service for the evening."

Traumatic brain injury

Paramedics arrived at 3 a.m. and the woman was taken to Health Sciences North with "polytrauma, including severe traumatic brain injury."

She died at 2 p.m. in hospital.

In clearing police, SIU Director Joseph Martino said the police officer acted with "due care and regard for public safety while engaged in the exercise of his duties in the time leading to the collision."

"The (officer), an experienced marine vessel operator with the OPP, had his navigational lights on and was proceeding safely by all accounts when the collision happened," Martino wrote.

"Regrettably, the boat in which the (woman) was in did not have any navigational lights and ought not have been in the water at that time of night. It would appear on the evidence, both testimonial and forensic (including a re-enactment of the incident), that (her) vessel was simply not visible until it was too late."

Martino said the case is now closed. The full release, including the incident narrative, can be found here.