Yet - Another - One

"She saved his life. If she wasn't there to stop his car going into the ditch, he would have flipped his car, or plowed into a tree."
"If you were down, she found a way to pick you back up. She worked hard all her life and her life was taken away just before retirement."
Tracy Gagne, 26, daughter of deceased drunk-driving victim Janet Clerment

To Janet Clermont, 54, it was just another day of the scant few months left before she and her business- and life-partner would finally retire and begin to enjoy life together.  They had made their plans, and they were anticipating having all the leisure time together they would ever want, to make the most of their retirement years.

She was very familiar with the road she was driving on.  A dangerous one.  One that she warned her 36-year-old son Shawn Guenette about, to drive with caution, always. It was in the early morning hours that she had embarked into yet another work day, and five hours later, at 7:30 a.m., her work day was near concluding.

Photo: Mike Carroccheti, Ottawa Citizen

Sunday morning at Dunning and Innes roads, south of Cumberland, a car driven by 24-year-old resident of nearby Orleans, Wassim Outifrakh, hit Janet Clermont's Chrysler Sebring throwing it off the road and into a deep ditch. Janet Clermont died there. The man whose vehicle hit hers faces charges of impaired driving causing death, dangerous driving causing death and having a blood-alcohol level over 80 mg while causing a motor vehicle accident causing death.

The day before Janet Clermont's oldest son had suggested she use the company pick-up truck, making her rounds as a baked goods merchandiser.  "At least she would have been a bit higher up -- in that car, she didn't have a chance", her son said. "You'd see people driving head on towards you in your lane, drunk or high. At that time, bars are closing so we would meet all these people coming from the bars", explained Shawn Guenette, recalling his experiences driving with his mother on the rural roads.

The route that started for Shawn's mother at 2:30 a.m. on week-end mornings was one where they "saw a lot of crazy things". The crazy thing that finally killed his mother was a Nissan Infiniti eastbound on Innes Road, the driver running a stop sign, and colliding with Janet Clermont's car going north on Dunning Road.

Where paramedics pronounced the mother of three, partner of a  newly bereaved man preparing to retire, dead at the scene.