Written by Ron Realesmith
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has” – Margaret Mead
On Thursday, January 4th, 2007 in Sarnia, New Year’s eve celebrations were in her rear view mirror and the resolutions were still being followed. Natalie Andrews was returning to her workday routine after a happy and merry holiday season had come to a close. Prepared for the day, Andrews left her Wellington Street home shortly before 8 a.m. on route to Carber Testing on Kendall Street in Point Edward where she was employed.
Andrews jumped into her brand new, factory-warrantied, shining blue Cavalier and headed to work. The weather was unremarkable. Dull, overcast with light, drizzling raining. Just another January morning and one we have experienced countless times in Sarnia. Once at Carber Testing, she tucked her New Year’s resolution complying lunch away and settled into her work-space in accounts receivable.
Sarnia Police Services Constable Jeffrey (Jeff) Rovers is a tall man. The kind of tall that needs to duck his head as he enters a room, with the kind of presence that garners the attention of all others in that room. On Thursday, January 4th, 2007, Rovers had served with the Sarnia Police Service for 7 years. Rovers began his policing career with Wallaceburg Police Service which later amalgamated into The Chatham Kent Police Service where he had spent 5 years. Over his years of service, he has shown that he is meticulous, observes everything and takes impeccable notes. He doesn’t mince words and has a witty personality. To this day, Rovers loves his profession and is an exemplary officer for the citizens of Sarnia.
On this fateful day, Cst. Rovers worked as an officer in the Traffic Branch. He patrolled the streets of Sarnia in his mobile office, Car 14, a black, unmarked, Crown Victoria. Working a midnight shift, his day had started at 2 p.m. with reviewing notes from several previous incidents and issuing a subpoena. There had been a stabbing incident a few nights prior and he was working on a lead regarding a vehicle involved with the scene. Following up on this lead led him to the area of McKenzie and George Street around 5:15 p.m. Unbeknownst to him, he was only approximately a block and 15 minutes out from what will become the most tragic dispatch of his career.
As 5 p.m. neared, Andrews was finishing up her day. A bit delayed, she stayed a little late to complete the day’s tasks and then called home to let her daughter know that she was on route. The day’s weather hadn’t changed much since she arrived at work, except the sun had set and a dark dusk had fallen on the city. Her home, set between East and Russell St., could be reached by a number of routes and Andrews often varied her drive home with no particular rhyme or reason for the direction she chose. The main factor that directed her course was whichever route offered more green lights, the path of least resistance.
On this day, she started home headed via London road towards East street. As she approached the Mitton Street intersection on London rd., the light turned red. Faced with waiting for the change or turning right on Mitton rd., she chose the latter. She had stayed late at work and was eager to get home. Just a typical detour on a normal drive home.
As she drove past and glanced to the left at the River City Vineyard building site, Andrews recalls seeing a jogger and people out walking. It was around 5:30 p.m. when she was stopped out front of the Sarnia General Hospital for a red light at George Street as she drove south down Mitton St. Stopped at an intersection, waiting for the green to flash. A scene we have all lived countless times and never given a second thought once that red light turned to green.
“Within 2 seconds of stopping, I heard squealing tires from behind. I looked up at my rear-view mirror and saw only headlights getting bigger and brighter and I thought “‘Fuck! He’s going to hit me!’” Andrews clenched her hands around the steering wheel, still at the 10 and 2 positions, and braced for the inevitable impact. Andrews only recalls seeing lights hurdling towards her. It wouldn’t be until the following day’s account in the newspaper that she would learn about the vehicle that was about to crash into her shiny new car.
Upon impact, Andrews’s glasses were flung from her face and her seat belt fastened tightly and pulled against her body to the point of being suffocated. Her car was propelled forward into the intersection, coming to rest right in the center of the Mitton and George street crossing. From pure maternal instinct, she frantically checked the backseat where her grand son’s empty baby seat was strapped in. An instant relief remembering that he was not traveling with her today.
While Andrews and her car were at a standstill in the middle of the intersection, the offending vehicle and its driver raced past. Continuing their menacing path southbound on Mitton Street, the vehicle veered off the road and onto the sidewalk, striking unsuspecting pedestrians. The number of casualties was climbing; the bloodshed was mounting.
Andrews heard the fierce sound of a crack, like a lightning bolt striking next to her. The services pole on the southwest corner of the Mitton and George street intersection snapped like a twig upon the menacing vehicle’s impact. Electric sparks and blue flames emanated from the falling pole. “The wires landed on the roof of my car. It’s like the 4th of July with bangs and flashes. My driver side window was already rolled down slightly and I could hear the crackling like metal in a microwave. A sound you never want to hear” recalls Andrews.
The wires that landed on the roof of the Andrews car were draped over the driver side window and came to rest on the road. “A police cruiser is now in front of my car but I can’t see it. My foot is still on the break pedal. My hands are still tightly grasping 10-2 on the steering wheel.”
It’s then that Andrews hears a voice call out, “Don’t get out of the car, stay where you are.” The same voice instructing her to stay was then instructing all innocent bystanders to run in the opposite direction. At first, Andrews recalls thinking ‘Don’t run away from me, save me. Come to me!’ “I later find out that those instructed to run away from me were running towards the Macintosh’s, the other victims of the trucks carnage. Those who were running to help were people all dressed in green scrubs, nurses and doctors spilling out of the hospital. To this day, I don’t know who they were.”
“A few minutes into the crash now and I’m afraid. Fear is racing through my body. I haven’t had a cigarette in 7 years and all of sudden I am craving one” recounts Andrews.
“I start testing my limbs. I wiggle my toes and I wiggle my fingers. I pull my hands from the steering wheel. I say to myself ‘I’m ok, nothing is broken.’ I repeat it again to myself. My foot is still on the break, the car is not in park. I’m afraid to put it in park.”
That’s when Andrews used her cell phone to call 911.
Natalie: “I’m in an accident”
Dispatcher: “We know, Brock and London”
Natalie: No, Mitton and George
Dispatcher: Really, another one. What is your name?
Natalie: Natalie Leduc
Dispatcher: Natalie, its Marianne
(Andrews recalls relief flowing through her body at this point. Marianne is someone she knew through friendly social gatherings).
Dispatcher: Are you alright?
Natalie: I don’t know.
Andrews remembers making a request of the dispatcher. “I ask[ed] the dispatcher to call my home and to tell my family that I have been in a car accident.”
Unbeknown to Andrews at the time, a hit and run car accident had just been reported at the corner of Brock street and London road. It would later become known that the offending driver in that incident had just caused her accident.
The ‘10-50 PI’ call came over Cst. Rovers’ radio at 5:35 p.m. “This is police talk for a motor vehicle collision resulting in an injury” explains Rovers. “The location is Mitton and George, right down the road from where I am parked. I respond over the radio that I would attend.”
“I pull up in the cruiser and I’ve stopped east of George and Mitton Street. I’m the first responder on scene. My first thought is ‘this can’t be real.’ I’m waiting for the director to scream “CUT!.” An intersection of the city that I have driven through hundreds of times is now foreign to me. I notice the power lines first. Hydro poles down on southwest Mitton and George. Next, the car in the middle of the intersection. It has rear end damage to the car.” Andrews brand new, factory-warrantied blue cavalier no longer looks new. “Spectators are coming from everywhere. I’m concerned about their safety due to the downed power lines and rain. I started yelling at everyone to stay back for their safety. I get back in my cruiser with my lights and sirens on and I drive south to Mitton and Bright Street. There is a woman with her young child who I later learn is on maternity leave tending to a man (Ralph Macintosh) who is lying in the gutter of the roadway. Ralph speaks up to us “where’s my wife?” he asks. I ask the nurse to stay with Ralph. I move my cruiser to the middle of the road to block traffic.
“I look north to the intersection where the power lines are down and the blue car is in the middle of the intersection. Firefighters are now on scene and addressing the car, power lines and growing crowds. I look south and begin to approach the truck that has created all of this carnage. The truck has struck the corner of a brick commercial/apartment building on the southwest side of the intersection. I learn later that Ralph and his wife own a store called ‘The Georgian Shop’ here. The bricks from the building are on the sidewalk and have been ripped out of the wall. The wheel tire assembly is completely off the truck and is about 20 feet back from the trucks final resting place. Up ahead the truck is lodged in the building about 2 feet deep. An Eye Doctors office. There is staff in the building.
“I approach the truck and find two men performing CPR on who I can only presume is Ralphs wife (Roberta). Dr. Davies from the eye doctor’s office and a security guard from the hospital are frantically working on Roberta. She was carried half a block by the truck. The truck hit the doctor’s office building on an angle, launching Roberta into the building wall. I stand over the two men performing CPR on Roberta and get a look at her situation. She isn’t responsive.”
“Holy Fuck!” was the only reaction Cst. Rovers could muster.
“I grab my radio ‘I need some assistance, now!’ I take a step back and take a few seconds to myself. I can hear my heart pulsating throughout my body. Goosebumps. Adrenaline. I let my training take over. Cop mode now in auto pilot. I grab my radio again “Additional units for traffic control and scene protection.”
“A male party approaches me with another male at his side. He advises that the man with him is Robert Patrick, the driver of the truck and that he apprehended him while he was attempting suicide moments prior.
“The male party hands me Patrick. I detect a strong odour of alcohol on his breath. I handcuff him and place him in the cruiser. I go to read him his rights and I’ll never forget this, my hands were shaking franticly as I’ve never arrested anyone for impaired driving causing death. I read him his rights. He replies that he understands.
“Other police units have now arrived, asking what is needed of them. The crowd of onlookers is large now. I open my cruiser door, stand up onto the car and start yelling at the top of my lungs ‘Whoever saw this pickup driver, raise your hand!’ Several hands go up. I instruct the witnesses to come forward and assigned each to an officer to be interviewed.”
While the scene is unrolling around her, Andrews is still trapped in her car. “I’m sitting in my car forever. An hour and a half now. Hydro company had to attend and disconnect the downed lines and I was stuck and alone. Paramedics and fire fighters were performing perimeter assessments and I am alone. Firefighters are talking to me to try and keep me calm. I am anxious, I want to get out of my car and run away. I am fighting the urge not to open the door and run. My foot is still to the ground, holding the car in ‘park’.”
“Can you put the car in ‘park’?” firefighter Billy Turner asked Andrews. “I don’t want to. I am afraid the car will blow up” Andrews exclaims. “I’m really panicking now. I am crying. Everything is hurting. The fireman comes over to the car. He tells me he is getting in to sit with me and wants to talk. He asks me to unlock the passenger side. I am frozen. I say ’Are you sure you can do this?’ He walks over to the driver side and takes my keys from me. The firefighter was so calm and reassuring. He sat with me and calmed me down. His British accent calmed me. We talked about England.”
By 6:00 p.m., it’s dark and raining in Sarnia, recalls Rovers. “I drive to the station with the suspect. I seize all of his clothes. I ask him how much he drank. ‘7 cans of Old Milwaukee Ice’ is the faint response from Patrick. He tells me he consumed them all while driving. Patrick was wearing his seatbelt. I could tell by the redness of his chest where the seatbelt had been that most likely saved his life.”
At this point, Cst. Rovers administered a breathalyzer test.
Robert Patrick was charged with the following:
– Impaired driving causing death (Roberta)
– Impaired driving causing bodily harm, two counts
– Drive MV over 80
– Drive disqualified (related to his multiple drinking and driving offences)
At 7:30 p.m., Rovers returned to the scene to access the aftermath of the carnage.
“The passenger side of Patricks’ truck had extensive damage. I approach the blue car in the center of the intersection. There was extensive damage to the passenger rear. There are 2 hydro polls snapped off and lying on the ground. 195 Mitton Street is where the victims were struck. 191 Mitton Street is where the truck struck the side of the apartment building. The wheel tire assembly, bricks and debris are lying in front of the apartment building. The truck drove on 3 wheels when it hit the Doctors Office at 185 North Mitton. This is where I found Roberta. I enquire about Ralph McIntosh. His injures were extensive and remained in critical condition for a long period of time.”
Eleven months after the incident, Rovers recalls Robert Patrick’s day in court. “I attended court on the day Robert Patrick pled guilty and that’s when it all hit me. You see Ralph McIntosh walking with a cane. He and others provide their victim impact statements. What was just a typical day, like any other, and within a few moments and poor decisions, people who do not know each other are now connected forever.”
“Everyone was very emotional, including me. I broke down and cried. I was just doing my job I kept thinking to myself but when you’re in the court room and see the raw emotion you realize the affect this event had on so many” recounts Rovers. “The sentencing was also the end of a chapter. There was a lot of work that went into the case preparation. At court, with all of the people there I realized how many people were counting on you to get it right. I didn’t want to let anyone down. I didn’t want to make any mistakes.”
Robert Patrick pled guilty to the largest sentence ever handed down for drinking and driving causing death in Canada at the time, which carried a 13-year sentence.
“This case wasn’t just me. It was a team effort. My fellow officers all showed up and did their job. A nurse on maternity leave did her part. Firefighters taking care of the car in the middle of the intersection and ensuring the power lines didn’t cause further havoc. Citizens just going about their day showed up and did the right thing. In emergency services, you need to show up, do a good job, do it right, don’t freak out and keep the emotions at bay because so many people are relying on you to do so. Not just at the initial incident but the entire way through. When Ralph McIntosh was in the court room surrounded by friends and family and the sentencing came down, I realized the impact this case had on my own life but also for every person sitting in the room.”
“It was just a typical day at the job until someone decided to drink and drive. Everyone involved had their lives changed that day. That following Christmas I received flower arrangements from the Mackintosh family, thanking me for all of my help. It was the day before Christmas. I really appreciated it.”
Andrews remembers that day from a different perspective. Natalie recalls her experience at trial. “I wanted him [Robert Patrick] to know that my life mattered. He didn’t look like he cared. It was his forth offence. All of these years later I still have pain but I know that my life matters. We all mattered!”
Andrews dealt with survivor’s guilt for many years. “If my car was more in the way, Roberta would have lived. It took a long time and counselling to resolve that. Six years removed from that day and I had a lot blocked out. Every new memory rediscovered brought new pain. So many layers to address.”
“The last layer was removing myself from the accident and experiencing the incident like watching a movie. I was able to separate myself from the moment. This healing led to advocacy and for being a voice for Mrs. Macintosh. Now it is for all of them. The first time I shared my story was in front of 1000 students at Northern.”
Natalie Andrews’s journey to recovery and drive to support others who have experienced similar life changing events led her to become the President of Mothers Against Drunk Driver (MADD) for Sarnia Lambton (2014-2018). “I have a life time commitment to keep families safe from impaired driving. I am part of a family that I never thought I would be apart of because on the day of the accident, it was just another typical day. I didn’t realize how much I needed MADD in order to heal.”