A 16-year-old woman is recovering in an Ottawa youngsters’s hospital after struggling severe accidents in what her household describes as a brutal assault allegedly dedicated by her ex-boyfriend, who’s now in custody and dealing with charges together with tried homicide.
“I do not understand how she’s alive. No one is aware of,” mentioned Kaylie Smith’s cousin Paige Smith, who spoke to CBC on behalf of the household. “It is unimaginable, her energy and resilience on this.”
Kaylie Smith was airlifted to CHEO, jap Ontario’s youngsters’s hospital in Ottawa, on Sunday night time and stays there with a number of relations at her bedside.
Paige Smith mentioned her youthful cousin was getting off a bus close to her dwelling in Cobalt, Ont., on Sunday night time when a former boyfriend allegedly struck her with a car after which attacked her with what they imagine was a knife or machete.
Cobalt is about 500 kilometres northwest of Ottawa.
18-year-old charged with tried homicide
Phillipe Gagnon, 18, is in custody following the assault. He is dealing with one cost of try to commit homicide, one rely of aggravated assault and one rely of procurement of a weapon for a harmful goal.
Smith’s household mentioned her left hand was severed “fully from her physique” and her proper hand was “lower up very severely”.
She additionally suffered wounds to the again of her head and underwent a prolonged mind surgical procedure after the edged weapon was lodged in her cranium, her household mentioned.
The Temiskaming detachment of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) mentioned in a information launch earlier this week that they responded to a motorized vehicle collision in Cobalt and that their investigation “revealed that an altercation occurred between an 18-year-old male and a 16-year-old feminine, who suffered life-threatening accidents and was transported to a hospital, the place she stays.”
Gagnon is predicted to seem in court docket in Haileybury, Ont., on Nov. 12. A group protest is being organized to oppose his launch on bail.
CBC was unable to succeed in Gagnon’s authorized counsel.
Neighborhood in shock, elevating cash
“She nonetheless has a really lengthy highway forward of her, however for what she’s been by she’s very robust, very resilient,” Paige Smith mentioned of her cousin. “She’s recovering remarkably nicely for what’s occurred to her.”
Relations describe the highschool scholar as soft-spoken, candy and useful to others, in addition to being extremely creative.
The assault has left the group in Cobalt, with a inhabitants of fewer than 1,000, reeling.
“Everyone is aware of one another and everybody’s simply devastated,” mentioned native resident Connie Boyd. “Anyone that I speak to, all people’s simply feeling actually, actually unhappy proper now about this complete factor. It is all all people is speaking about.”
Boyd mentioned that features the bus driver who dropped Smith off earlier than the assault.
A web-based fundraiser to assist the household has already raised greater than $60,000. Smith’s mom, sister and aunts are in Ottawa whereas she recovers.
Paige Smith referred to as the monetary assist “thoughts blowing.”
“It simply has us all in tears and completely simply floored, as a result of we’re not like a financially nicely off household,” she mentioned. “To have all of us right here … it means a lot,” she mentioned.
