The deadly cost of paving River Road in Chelsea

A 63-year-old road crew worker was killed when a big dump truck backed over him.

Published Sep 12, 2023 • Last updated 8 hours ago • 3 minute read

Police cordon off the scene where a 63-year-old road crew worker was killed when a dump truck (in the right) backed into him, pinning into the back of the yellow bulldozer (left) on River Road in Chelsea Monday morning. Photo by Gary Dimmock /Postmedia

Some folks who live along the Gatineau River in Chelsea noticed the noise of road construction had gone silent around 7:15 Monday morning.

The smell of diesel fumes ceased and the dust settled on River Road.

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Then the police cruisers and an ambulance arrived, and concerned neighbours learned the worst — a 63-year-old road crew worker was killed on the when a big dump truck backed over him. The reversing dump truck crushed the worker into the back of a bulldozer.

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The road-crew worker was refuelling the bulldozer when he was pinned by the reversing dump truck, police said. The road-crew worker is from Bouchette, Que., around 100 km north of Chelsea.

The conditions were clear at the doomed construction site and the silence was eerie.

A homesteader who lives on a neighbouring property along the road said she opened her window at 6:45 a.m. but promptly — right on schedule — closed it 15 minutes later at the start of construction time to keep the dust and noise at bay.

When she was driving her child to daycare she saw the police cruisers to her right as she stopped to turn left at the bottom of Cora-Rose Road, named after two mothers of folks who live at the top of the private road.

The body was covered with a yellow tarp and police went through the motions, photographing evidence and taking measurements, as oblivious joggers and cyclists passed by on the community trail.

Then police taped off the community trail between Cora-Rose and Winnisic Roads. The road-crew worker met untimely death right in front of the laneway of a couple known for raising safety concerns in the community.

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In fact, earlier this summer, as reported in the LowDown To Hull and Back News, the couple expressed concerns about safety along the bike trail that cuts through their property after they were met with threats of violence from a cyclist.

The trail, once a commuter railroad used by late prime ministers to get from Chelsea to Ottawa and back, was torn up and converted into a $7-million gravel bicycle trail that draws local families and cyclists from Ottawa and Gatineau. The cyclists go so fast that the municipality had to post speed limits.

On Friday, the contracted dump truck drivers used a nearby private road to reverse and do three-point turns with no flag people to control cycling traffic on the trail that intersects the road. (The crew had two flag men on the road on Friday, but none on the busy cyclist trail.)

There was a near-miss on Friday afternoon when a cyclist sped through the same intersecting laneway. He didn’t yield and a reversing dump truck came within three feet of backing into him.

There have been multiple times where traffic controllers direct motorists only for unsuspecting drivers to be met head-on with other motorists and dump trucks in a single lane.

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The road construction has been the talk of Farm Point village — with local news stories ranging from the fate of famed turtles along the road to the temporary removal of private and community docks. Just the other week, as documented in the LowDown to Hull and Back News, one woman on the road tried to save an old apple tree from the construction but they cut it down just the same, and the road crew called the police when she complained.

Geoff Sproule, a carpenter who was swimming a few weeks ago off a dock by Monday’s fatal accident, expressed concern about some of the dump trucks’ high rate of speed, notably the ones with no markings, or names or phone numbers on the sides of the cab.

The police re-opened the road and bike trail Monday late afternoon, right after the dump truck was towed from the scene.

The province’s workplace-safety regulator is investigating the death and so is the local police department.

Chelsea Mayor Pierre Guénard called it a tragedy and offered sympathies to the victim’s family and co-workers.

The deadly accident on River Road happened directly across the river from Pike Peninsula, its shoreline dramatically bare after Hydro Quebec lowered the level the other day for work at the dam downstream, specifically the removal of a temporary platform used for repairs.

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