This scene is hard to write and read, but it is the images that live it permanently. Alone at night – and drugs – sleeping his suffering that reappears at daybreak.
“I am as dead with my daughter …”
Léah was 14 years old and was the only child of José Gignac. She was caught up in a van arriving in the opposite direction. It happened on July 9, around 10:30 p.m., at the intersection of Boulevard Saint-Maurice and rue Laviolette, in downtown Trois-Rivières.
The girl led a moped bought in the spring. She dreamed of having one like José at the same age, with the difference that her own father opposed it at the time.
When Léah expressed the wish to be more independent by moving in a scooter, José was able to understand it.
“I was as happy as she, so I said yes and I regret it …” he says, crying.
It is an unfortunate and tragic accident, but part of him blames himself for what happened.
On this Wednesday evening July 9, Léah and his lover had an appointment. “Dad, would you come and renew me?” He is starting to be late, ”she asked him.
José and her daughter had already done a few walks together, she, on her moped and, on her motorcycle. It was however the first time that the teenager offered to make the trip between their home, in the Sainte-Marthe-du-Cap sector, and that of her boyfriend, more or less eight kilometers away.
They left, one behind the other. Léah was in front.
“I followed her to see her behavior,” said her father, who made a way, gave him some advice for a safer driving.
In its opinion, the training provided by the Quebec Automobile Insurance Company is insufficient. The course includes three hours of theory and three hours of closed circuit practice, the last half hour of which is used for evaluation.
“I was surprised to learn that there was no practice on the road, with an instructor,” said José Gignac.
Since the accident, the man continuously redid the journey in his head and wants to have not exceeded Léah as the city center approaches, more specifically of the intersection where the drama has occurred.
“I should have taken the lead,” repeats José Gignac before mentioning that the left turn is not protected by a flashing green light or a green arrow.
It was already too late when José Gignac saw the van arriving in the opposite direction at the precise moment when Léah turned to the left.
«Not Léah! Not!”
The collision could not be avoided.
“Dad!” Just had time to shout the teenager before being projected several meters further.
The man returned on the spot to reconstruct the scene of the accident. He counted 65 steps between the place where her daughter was caught up and where she fell.
In tears, José Gignac goes back for the time and remembers that “dad” was the first word that her daughter pronounced when she was a baby.
“It’s also the last …”
Sitting on a park bench where he agreed to meet me, the grieving father continues the story of the accident, as a film in slow motion.
The driver comes out of his van, a cell phone by hand. “Call the ambulance!” The enjoin José Gignac, in shock. A citizen who says he is the first respondent has already started resuscitation maneuvers under the gaze of curious people who agglutinate. “Mut yourself from there!” Leave him air! ” The father of Léah is getting carried away who, to be repeated, would have mounted with her, in the ambulance.
“Maybe if I had been there, to talk to him …?”
This video by Léah Gignac, smiling and happy, was recorded a few days before she tragically lost her life. (Valérie Bolduc)
Léah Gignac succumbed to his injuries at the Center Hospitalier de Trois-Rivières where his relatives took the 100 steps before the news of his death was confirmed to them.
Separated for a few years from Léah’s mother, José Gignac is trying to survive the absence of his daughter. Despite the ups and downs of adolescence, their complicity was intact.
“We were talking about real business. She was still quite mature for her age… ”underlines José Gignac who had just finished training in carpentry-Menuiserie and to find a job in this area. He has been on work stoppage since the accident.
“Images are engraved for life in my memory.”
— José Gignac
Man needs professional psychological help, but currently, he struggles to take the steps for himself to obtain an appointment. Concentration problems, memory loss and dizziness affect the one whose motorcycle is for sale.
A socio -financing campaign has been set up by Tamara, Léah’s big sister, in order to help reimburse the costs of the funeral that will take place this Saturday, August 16.
José Gignac does not think of having the strength to speak during the tribute to his daughter who is missing every day, every hour and every minute. A family friend, however, wrote these words inspired by what her father feels thinking about her …
“On this last trip, I followed you. And in the momentum for a moment, you joined the light from the sky, launching your last: ” dad ”. Since your departure, my heart remains there, half, and these moments will remain forever anchored in my mind. You were my only girl, my life. I adored you more than anything, more than infinity. “
