Tragedy strikes twice at rural intersection on Pickering Uxbridge border
Published July 22, 2023 at 12:02 am
Tragedy has struck a rural intersection on the Pickering-Uxbridge border for the second time in less than two days.
Friday morning a 71 year-old woman was killed when her car, travelling southbound on Sideline 28 at Pickering-Uxbridge Townline Road, left the roadway just after ten a.m. Emergency crews were quickly on the scene, but the woman was pronounced dead at hospital.
Durham Police are investigating but no other details have been released.
Two days earlier a 16 year-old boy riding a dirt bike died after he was hit head-on by a vehicle at the same intersection at about 9:30 p.m.
In Wednesday’s tragedy the vehicle was headed eastbound on the Townline road when the driver crossed the centre line and hit the teen on the dirt bike coming from the other direction.
The driver remained on the scene and she “fully cooperated” with attending officers, police say. The boy was rushed to nearby Markham-Stouffville Hospital he was pronounced dead.
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No other information was made available and it is unknown if the driver will be charged.
The intersection is several kilometres west of the Pickering hamlet of Claremont and just east of Altona, which had as many as 256 residents in 1856 but became a ‘ghost town’ when the federal government expropriated the lands and what village structures remained for the purpose of building an airport in 1972.
Nearby is a farm and garden, popular with photographers and wedding parties, called Serenity Gardens.
For the families of two people killed this week in this forgotten corner of Durham Region, the intersection of Pickering-Uxbridge Townline Road and Sideline 28 is anything but serene.
If anyone has any information that may help police in this investigation, contact D/Cst. Lathangue or D/Cst. Vander Duim of the Traffic Services Branch at 1-888-579-1520 ext. 5227.
