Verona Still Reeling From Tragic Car Crash

Jeff Green | Jul 09, 2015

Everywhere in the Sydenham High School catchment area, the communities are still reeling from the car crash that happened on Rutledge Road at 10:45 at night on June 16.

The crash took two lives and left Verona teen Tyler Parr in a fight for his life, a fight he is, thankfully, starting to win.

In the village of Verona, where Parr and his best friend Kevin Grant, were raised, it's as if a fog rolled in as news spread on the following morning, a fog that has lingered. Kevin Grant, from Bellrock, and Abigail Sutherland, from Kingston, both died as the result of the accident.

When police informed Carl and Laura Grant on that terrible night that they needed to go to Kingston General Hospital (KGH) right away, they picked up Tammy Parr on the way. That's how the families were connected, through their own family ties and the friendship that their sons shared.

Tyler and Kevin lived the life of country teenagers, hunting and fishing and playing sports whenever and wherever they could. Kevin helped out at his family's dairy farm, and Tyler was about to interview for a job washing cars at Revell Ford's the day after the accident took place. They were in grade 11 and looking forward to the kind of summer adventures that only 16-year-olds get to experience.

Now the Grant family is struggling with having lost Kevin, and the Parrs are still camped out at KGH as Tyler starts a long physical and emotional recovery process that won't end in days or weeks, but will take months and years.

The family is more than grateful for the efforts of the staff in the ICU at KGH. At one point the hospital had been planning to move Tyler to Toronto, where there is some extra equipment available for damage that had been done to Tyler's lungs, but his condition improved and the KGH staff were committed to following his recovery through from the life-threatening state he was in when he arrived, towards stability and eventually to the rehabilitation stage

The village of Verona has changed over the years. People don't gather together as often as they did in the past. It could be because people travel more for work, or work longer hours, or because instead of meeting for coffee once in a while, people send dozens of texts to their friends each week. The events of June 16 have changed all that for the time being in Verona

At a fundraising ball tournament on June 26 to raise money for medical and rehabilitation costs for the Parr family, an event that was initiated by a high school friend, people gathered in large numbers, raising spirits as well as $6,000.

Online fund raising campaigns have raised even more money (see www.gofundme.com/xdt4H9w), where $24,000 has been raised thus far.

More than that, people in Verona are taking solace in community these days. They are still conducting business, still carrying on old rivalries, but there is a camaraderie as well, as they think about the unbearable loss of the Grant family and the mix of hope, pain and anxiety over the future that is the daily reality of the Parr family.

There was a sign up at Verona Hardware last week: “God help our community” it said.

As for Tyler Parr's condition three weeks after the accident. His father Larry said on Tuesday, “Tyler is having a good day today. He is waiting for another orthopedic consultation for his arm. He is still quite tired but did go outside for a little while today. Our family is still very cautiously optimistic and he is improving all the time.”