A western Quebec man is suing Quebec police, claiming they didn’t do enough to help when he was stranded for almost two full days after a crash.
Gilles Gargantiel, now age 44, spent over a year in hospital and lost his right foot after an October 2009 crash.
He was driving on Highway 148 when he lost control of his car and went off the road, settling in an area between the highway and a train track.
“It was -15 C,” he said. “I was out for two nights and three days.”
Gargantiel said his car’s OnStar system phoned police with the exact latitude and longitude of his car after it sensed a crash, but police didn’t listen.
“OnStar, they called again. They won’t stop calling,” police can be heard saying in French in a recording provided to CTV Ottawa.
In the meantime, he was lying there with broken ribs, broken vertebrae and a head injury.
“I don’t think they ever got out of their car, they did drive by I’m sure,” he said. “If they had gotten out of the car they would have seen it.”
Gargantiel said he was eventually found after someone saw him from a passing train.
“And then police came, they realized ‘Oh, last night the guy caught between the tracks and (Highway) 148, OnStar kept telling us he’s there,” he said.
“I was completely black, frozen when they picked me up . . . they didn’t manage to save my right foot because gangrene had gotten into it.”
After a 13 month hospital recovery, Gargantiel says he now can’t work.
He’s suing le Surete du Quebec for almost $1 million, claiming they should have done more to find him.
“Every time I drive by here I get a lump, because I could have died,” he said.
With a report from CTV Ottawa’s Catherine Lathem
