Eighty-year-old Pat Hare always prided himself as being a helper, and his son Ron Hare remembers him as a gentleman to the end.
“Even though he could hardly walk he still wanted to be the guy who held the door and made sure everyone got in OK,” Ron told CHEK News on Friday.
So when Pat’s flight from Calgary to Comox was delayed many hours and had him driving down Highway 19A at 3 a.m. on Saturday, March 2, for Parksville, he stopped when he saw a driver hit a power pole just north of Qualicum Beach. That’s when Ron said tragedy struck.
“And he got out to help her, and at the time he was calling assistance for her another vehicle came along at a high rate of speed and smashed into her car, [then] her car smashed into my father and the other girl as well,” said Ron.
The impact sent the car clear across Highway 19A, before landing in a ditch on the other side. All three people were rushed to hospital, but it was Pat’s injuries that were life-threatening.
Ron has since been told by first responders that his dad pushed the woman he was helping out of the way of the incoming car’s impact. The grandfather of six died days later in a Victoria hospital.
“He was one of the most kindest people I knew and he would always be there for us, all the grandchildren and his sons. So it’s a tough loss for us,” said grandson Ryan Hare.
Even more upsetting to the Red Deer, Alberta senior’s grieving family is that the driver who hit him is being investigated for impaired driving.
“He was only two hours off the plane ahead of a two month holiday at Madrona [Resort in Parksville],” said Ron.
According to Oceanside RCMP, the driver who hit Pat and the woman that he stopped to help is still being investigated for impaired driving, and if charges are laid it is likely that they will be upgraded to impaired driving causing death now.
“It’s just a senseless tragedy, when are people going to learn not to drink and drive?” said Ron.
For 25 years, Pat made Rathtrevor Beach and Parksville’s Madrona Resort his home for two months each spring. So his family hopes that Islanders will remember him as a man who loved this place like his second home, and died trying to be a good neighbour.
Skye Ryan
