Accident witness saw body parts

By CHRIS DOUCETTE, Toronto Sun

Last Updated: August 31, 2010 11:00am

Two days after witnessing the aftermath of a horrific accident on Hwy. 401 in Whitby, Jennifer Howey still felt nauseous as she recalled seeing body parts strewn across the highway.

The sickening sight of the dead motorcycle passenger is something the 38-year-old Toronto woman says she will never forget.

Howey was driving her Nissan Xterra through Durham Region Friday night around 11:30 p.m. with her boyfriend in the passenger seat.

The physiotherapist was in the centre lane when the racing-style motorcycle came “from out of nowhere” and zoomed by on her left side.

“He must have been going 180 or 190, it was unbelievable,” Howie told the Toronto Sun on Sunday. “He was weaving in and out of traffic, it was just insane.” Based on their stature, and their hands, she believes the driver was male and the passenger clinging tightly to his waist was a female.

Howey and her boyfriend immediately began talking about “what an idiot” the motorcyclist was, especially considering there was a passenger on the back, when a police cruiser suddenly passed them with its lights flashing.

Farther along the highway, she saw the flashing lights again and slowed down expecting to see the motorcyclist stopped at the side of the road and a police officer writing a slew of tickets.

Little did she know, the passenger had fallen off and the driver fled the scene of the mishap.

“I suddenly saw body parts on the road,” Howey recalled. “I had to try to avoid them while not causing an accident,” she explained. “There was a head in a helmet on one side of me and part of a body on the other.” She thinks she may have run over an arm in her SUV.

After travelling a little farther, she saw some vehicles stopped and more police cruisers, so she assumed the bike had crashed.

“We didn’t see anything actually happen or we would have stopped,” she said. “I really didn’t know what to do.”

It wasn’t until she watched the news the next morning that she realized the driver of the bike was alive and that he had fled. That’s when she called police to report what she had seen.

“I can’t fathom how this guy managed to stay in control of the motorcycle,” Howey said. “And she would have flown off at such a velocity that she would have been broken in two by the time she hit the ground.”

The province’s Special Investigations Unit, called in any time there is a serious injury or death involving police, is probing the incident.

In a statement released Saturday, the SIU reported a Durham police officer had attempted to pull over the motorcyclist around Brock St. and he took off.

As the driver accelerated, the passenger tumbled off the back and was struck by “one or more cars,” they said. Police continue their hunt for the driver.

From: http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2010/08/29/15181051.html