The trajectory of Sandra LaRose’s life changed Aug. 16, 2018.
She was working in the garden at her farm near Weyburn, Sask., expecting Kailynn Bursic-Panchuk — her 16-year-old daughter — to get home and give her a hand.
But when the girl hadn’t arrived by 6 p.m., LaRose sent a text to her phone. The response was from her daughter’s friend, directing the now-worried mom to call a number for more information.
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Sandra LaRose is one of three people who will travel to high schools in Manitoba Public Insurance’s Friends for Life Speaker Series.
The call connected to Saskatchewan RCMP. Bursic-Panchuk had driven her vehicle into the path of a train and had been critically injured.
“I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience,” LaRose said, remembering the horrifying moment.
Her daughter had been blaring music and looking at her cellphone in the seconds before the collision, an investigation later determined.
After six days on life support, Bursic-Panchuk died a day after her 17th birthday.
“I didn’t plan on becoming a road-safety speaker,” LaRose said. “When I found out it was something that was 100 per cent preventable, I couldn’t keep quiet.”
She is one of three people who will travel to high schools across Manitoba from Monday until Nov. 1 to deliver heartbreaking cautionary tales in Manitoba Public Insurance’s Friends for Life Speaker Series.
The consequences of speeding, distracted driving and impaired driving are life-shattering.
“It’s not somebody up there sharing statistics with students,” LaRose said. “It’s real-life stories from real people.”
LaRose will be joined by Shelley Forney, whose daughter Erica was riding her bike home from school when she was struck by a distracted driver, and John Westhaver, who was in a collision that claimed the lives of several of his best friends and left him with severe burns to 75 per cent of his body.
“The cost of making dangerous decisions on the road can be devastating and that’s why MPI is committed to helping young people form a strong foundation around road safety as early as possible.”– Maria Campos, MPI vice-president and chief customer and product officer
According to MPI data, young drivers are 2.4 times more likely to be in a severe collision involving alcohol impairment than other age group.
On average, 41 youth are injured annually in speed-related collisions in Manitoba. Between 2017 and 2021, 17 people between the ages of 15 and 21 were killed in distracted-driving crashes, MPI data shows.
“The cost of making dangerous decisions on the road can be devastating and that’s why MPI is committed to helping young people form a strong foundation around road safety as early as possible,” Maria Campos, vice-president and chief customer and product officer, said in a statement.
“Through Friends for Life and our other community relations programs, MPI recognizes the impact we can have by talking to new drivers as early as possible to encourage them to avoid high-risk driving behaviours.”
The program, in its 13th year, includes partnerships with MADD Canada and the Manitoba School Board Association’s Safe Grad program.
Since 2021, LaRose has spoken to more than 15,000 students through MPI and private speaking events. In 2020 she launched Sharing Kailynn’s Sunshine fund, which began as an event to celebrate the life of her daughter, but quickly became an annual fundraiser.
This year LaRose raised $10,500 for STARS Air Ambulance, which airlifted the teen from the crash site to hospital.
The point of LaRose’s speaking engagements is to raise awareness around distracted driving, but at the heart of her work is her daughter, who “sparkled” and “brightened up every room.”
“When I stand on stage and I look out into the audience, all I see is a whole bunch of Kailynns,” she said.
“I want them to grow old. I want them to experience everything; I want them to graduate. I want them to fall in love and get married and have the wedding of their dreams, and travel and everything that Kailynn didn’t get to do.”
nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca
Nicole Buffie
Multimedia producer
Nicole Buffie is a multimedia producer who reports for the Free Press city desk. Born and bred in Winnipeg, Nicole graduated from Red River College’s Creative Communications program in 2020 and worked as a reporter throughout Manitoba before joining the Free Press newsroom in 2023. Read more about Nicole.
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