Lim Taing, the father of crash survivor Pho Taing expresses his pain after losing his daughter-in-law and granddaughter in a collision with a suspected drunk driver. (Lucas Oleniuk/Toronto Star)Immigrants who persevered over war, separation and disease grapple with losses in fatal car crash
Wed Oct 21 2009
Jennifer Yang
Staff Reporter
Toronto Star (Canada)
The Taings survived war, sickness and poverty. But a speeding BMW shattered the family forever.
"In one minute. In one minute. Two die in just one minute," wept 72-year-old Lim Taing, his face covered with both hands.
His son, Pho Taing, was driving a minivan on Saturday night when it was sliced in two by a speeding BMW near Finch Ave. W. and Tobermory Dr.
Pho Taing's wife, Hon To, 44, and their 24-year-old daughter, Khan (Christine) Taing, were ejected from the minivan and killed instantly. Christine's godmother was also killed.
Pho Taing, 42, and a family friend, 36-year-old Hon Tran, were taken to the hospital with serious injuries.
The speed limit in the area is 60 kilometres an hour and police estimate the 1999 BMW 540 was travelling at 200 km/h.
Roman Luskin, 21, faces numerous charges, including impaired driving and failing to take a breathalyzer.
Pho Taing has since been released from hospital and is staying with family in the Jane and Finch area. On Tuesday, he was too grief-stricken to speak about the tragedy and spent much of the day lying in bed, a table of pills and tissues at his side.
"He wishes he could have died with her," said Lim Taing, speaking through a translator.
"He lived only to get more pain. All night long, all day long, he cries all the time and becomes sick and pained."
Lim Taing said he was worried about his son, a man who loved his family deeply and had already survived many hardships.
Originally from Cambodia, the Taing family lived through the Cambodian civil war. In 1979, they were forced to flee following the Vietnamese invasion. Lim Taing said he and his wife went to Thailand while Pho, his second-eldest child, wound up at a refugee camp in Vietnam.
The two men wouldn't see each other again for nearly 20 years. Lim Taing eventually moved to Canada with his wife but he continued searching for his son, posting ads in newspapers and asking friends and acquaintances.
Father and son eventually reconnected in the early 1990s and in 1995, Pho came to Canada as a refugee. He brought with him a new wife, Hon To, and their young daughter, Christine.
"I was very happy," Taing remembered, closing his eyes.
But the family faced hardship once again when Hon To fell ill, about 10 years ago. She was diagnosed with cancer and doctors gave her five years to live, Taing said.
Pho quit his factory job to care for his ailing wife and the family began to live off government assistance. But Hon To, a devout Buddhist, fought the disease and ultimately outlived her grim prognosis by five years.
Meanwhile, Christine enrolled in nursing studies at the University of Toronto. She was set to graduate in March.
"One of the reasons she wanted to take medicine is because she wanted to take care of her mother," Lim Taing said.
Taing said his granddaughter was an "extraordinary child" who respected her parents deeply. She was so studious she would even avoid dating, he added.
Only recently, Lim Taing had been bragging to friends about his granddaughter, he said, expressing pride in her achievements. Days later, Christine and her parents were returning home from visiting a local temple when the BMW slammed into their car.
"(Pho) told me that he completely didn't see it coming," Lim Taing said.
When Pho awoke in the hospital, he didn't know his wife and child had died, Lim Taing said. On Sunday, he insisted on leaving the hospital to see them and only then did he learn of their passing, Taing said.
Lim Taing said he feels "only pain" when thinking of the tragedy. As for the other driver, he said his fate is now for to the courts to decide.
"Why (drive) like that? Why 200 kilometres an hour?" he asked, grimacing in anguish. "It's too much."
Luskin faces three counts of impaired driving causing death, three counts of criminal negligence causing death and failure to provide a breath sample.
On Tuesday morning, the Russian immigrant appeared in court wearing a white bandage around his left hand, with visible scrapes along the right side of his head. He was remanded in custody until Oct. 30, when he will return to court to set a date for a bail hearing.
Luskin has faced other charges in the past and in 2007, he was charged with failing to provide a breathalyser sample, possessing tools for the purpose of forgery and fraud, and a court order violation. The charges were stayed or withdrawn, although the record did not state why.
That same year, Luskin also pleaded guilty to five charges related to the placing of an electronic information "skimmer" on an ATM at a Kingston Scotiabank branch, according to a story in The Kingston Whig-Standard. He was given a six-month conditional sentence to be served in the community.
With files from Brendan Kennedy, John Goddard, Denise Balkissoon, Rosie DiManno and Jesse McLean
Wed Oct 21 2009
Jennifer Yang
Staff Reporter
Toronto Star (Canada)
The Taings survived war, sickness and poverty. But a speeding BMW shattered the family forever.
"In one minute. In one minute. Two die in just one minute," wept 72-year-old Lim Taing, his face covered with both hands.
His son, Pho Taing, was driving a minivan on Saturday night when it was sliced in two by a speeding BMW near Finch Ave. W. and Tobermory Dr.
Pho Taing's wife, Hon To, 44, and their 24-year-old daughter, Khan (Christine) Taing, were ejected from the minivan and killed instantly. Christine's godmother was also killed.
Pho Taing, 42, and a family friend, 36-year-old Hon Tran, were taken to the hospital with serious injuries.
The speed limit in the area is 60 kilometres an hour and police estimate the 1999 BMW 540 was travelling at 200 km/h.
Roman Luskin, 21, faces numerous charges, including impaired driving and failing to take a breathalyzer.
Pho Taing has since been released from hospital and is staying with family in the Jane and Finch area. On Tuesday, he was too grief-stricken to speak about the tragedy and spent much of the day lying in bed, a table of pills and tissues at his side.
"He wishes he could have died with her," said Lim Taing, speaking through a translator.
"He lived only to get more pain. All night long, all day long, he cries all the time and becomes sick and pained."
Lim Taing said he was worried about his son, a man who loved his family deeply and had already survived many hardships.
Originally from Cambodia, the Taing family lived through the Cambodian civil war. In 1979, they were forced to flee following the Vietnamese invasion. Lim Taing said he and his wife went to Thailand while Pho, his second-eldest child, wound up at a refugee camp in Vietnam.
The two men wouldn't see each other again for nearly 20 years. Lim Taing eventually moved to Canada with his wife but he continued searching for his son, posting ads in newspapers and asking friends and acquaintances.
Father and son eventually reconnected in the early 1990s and in 1995, Pho came to Canada as a refugee. He brought with him a new wife, Hon To, and their young daughter, Christine.
"I was very happy," Taing remembered, closing his eyes.
But the family faced hardship once again when Hon To fell ill, about 10 years ago. She was diagnosed with cancer and doctors gave her five years to live, Taing said.
Pho quit his factory job to care for his ailing wife and the family began to live off government assistance. But Hon To, a devout Buddhist, fought the disease and ultimately outlived her grim prognosis by five years.
Meanwhile, Christine enrolled in nursing studies at the University of Toronto. She was set to graduate in March.
"One of the reasons she wanted to take medicine is because she wanted to take care of her mother," Lim Taing said.
Taing said his granddaughter was an "extraordinary child" who respected her parents deeply. She was so studious she would even avoid dating, he added.
Only recently, Lim Taing had been bragging to friends about his granddaughter, he said, expressing pride in her achievements. Days later, Christine and her parents were returning home from visiting a local temple when the BMW slammed into their car.
"(Pho) told me that he completely didn't see it coming," Lim Taing said.
When Pho awoke in the hospital, he didn't know his wife and child had died, Lim Taing said. On Sunday, he insisted on leaving the hospital to see them and only then did he learn of their passing, Taing said.
Lim Taing said he feels "only pain" when thinking of the tragedy. As for the other driver, he said his fate is now for to the courts to decide.
"Why (drive) like that? Why 200 kilometres an hour?" he asked, grimacing in anguish. "It's too much."
Luskin faces three counts of impaired driving causing death, three counts of criminal negligence causing death and failure to provide a breath sample.
On Tuesday morning, the Russian immigrant appeared in court wearing a white bandage around his left hand, with visible scrapes along the right side of his head. He was remanded in custody until Oct. 30, when he will return to court to set a date for a bail hearing.
Luskin has faced other charges in the past and in 2007, he was charged with failing to provide a breathalyser sample, possessing tools for the purpose of forgery and fraud, and a court order violation. The charges were stayed or withdrawn, although the record did not state why.
That same year, Luskin also pleaded guilty to five charges related to the placing of an electronic information "skimmer" on an ATM at a Kingston Scotiabank branch, according to a story in The Kingston Whig-Standard. He was given a six-month conditional sentence to be served in the community.
With files from Brendan Kennedy, John Goddard, Denise Balkissoon, Rosie DiManno and Jesse McLean
17 comments:
My condolences to you for your loss, sir.
Jet Roy do ma mey!!!
Why does the family have Vietnamese names if they are from Cambodia?
Hey maybe they like to be YOUN. When they were lived in YOUN's camp.
What a terrible car accident! I send my condolences to you and the family.
My the souls of those who died be in peace.
My condolences to your family, May Buddha bless you.
they are either khmer krom or chinese khmer. those name can be chinese's names or vietnamese's names
Why is one nationality important for such tragedy? Are we so heartless to feel the pain and suffering of others? Is this our Khmer way of thinking? I hope not.
Think it over, you idiot 1:39AM, we have o lof of more different cases of suffering. And this one of them in this blog.
Viet don't have that kind of name. Lim Taing is a Khmer.
I am very sorry to hear this great lost. My condolence to them and wish them for a good peacefull new lives.
Areak Prey
Khmer people are not heartless, but our gentleness was taken away from us by trusting Thai and Youn. We trusted them and we got rape big time. When those idiot khmer rouge asked the youn to come and assist them against Lon Nol's troops, all the youn did was loot; kr had no choice but to chase them back to Vietnam. Khmer people had put their trust in so many different types of people, and they only got burned in the end. Therefore I can't blame them for their deep hatred. They been through so much.
It's always funny when the ignorant Thai/Vietnamese people ask why the Khmer people despise them so much? I'm so sick of Vietnam still acting like they were heroes that liberated Khmer people from kr. What a joke? Can't believe the whole believes that.
Is it that hard to remember their old Khmer names? Why keep the Vietnamese names? One Vietnamese lady I used to work with said that she's Khmer, but also said she's completely forgotten how to speak Khmer. Are you kidding me? How can you forget a language? It's like forgetting how to walk.
That is not the Vietnamese name. Khmer name are singled in word and sound like that.
Pho, Kim, Taing, Som, etc all are Khmer, not Vietnamese
i think cambodia need to introduce a strict law on drunk drivers or drunk people in general. driving drunk is very dangerous, indeed. many studies in the USA have shown that to be the truth, really. today might be this man's family, tomorrow may be your own family, who knows!
On behalf of Khmer Krom Ontario pay tribute and condolence the family of Elder Taing Lim for his lost of family's members May lord Buddha bless you all and the spirit of those who pass away rest in peace
So sad. Cambodian people will never recover the nightmare now lost the closest family members in foreign land. :(
God please forsake them.
what a tragic lost... i'm very sadden by this. God bless their soul.
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