TORONTO – The family of Amaresh Tesfamariam will harness her fighting spirit this week as she gathers the strength to talk about her life in front of the man who caused her death.
Tesfamariam was among 11 people killed and 15 others injured when a man in a rental van rioted on Toronto’s busy Yonge Street on April 23, 2018.
From Monday, her family, along with other survivors and dozens of victims’ loved ones, will file impact statements in court as the case against convicted murderer Alec Minassian is completed.
“We will fight like her,” Tesfamariam’s niece Luwam Ogbaselassie said in an interview.
Tesfamariam, 65, suffered devastating injuries after falling under attack.
She was paralyzed from the throat down, needed a respirator to breathe and her heart stopped several times.  But he struggled to live another three years, although he never left the hospital after the outbreak.
He died in October, becoming the eleventh person killed in the attack.
Betty Forsyth, Ji Hun Kim, So He Chung, Geraldine Brady, Chul Min Kang, Anne Marie D’Amico, Munir Najjar, Dorothy Sewell, Andrea Bradden and Beutis Renuka Amarasingha also died in the attack.
Writing the victim impact statement forced Ogbaselassie to reconsider her aunt’s horrible pain and suffering.
But in this reflection, he also found strength.
“The fact that she fought for so long has inspired so many of us that I think her memory will stay with us all forever,” Ogbaselassie said.  “We will fight like her.”
Hearing the sentence will allow the family to share Tesfamariam’s life story, not just her death, he said.
But the story was still difficult to write.
“It’s easier to shut up and not stay and think about everything,” Ogbaselassie said.  “He lived in such pain and misery, but he remained strong throughout – we will keep it.”
A similar power has developed within Cathy Riddell, both physically and mentally.
The truck attack left her with a broken spine, broken ribs, shoulder and pelvis, huge internal injuries and a brain injury.  Since then it is in restoration.
The 71-year-old enters the week feeling strong.
Lift weights in the gym twice a week for years.  She has been marked after “walking on a cane” by her walker.  And just a few weeks ago she had a moving encounter with a stranger who helped her that dark day.
This stranger, David Sword, was sitting in his car on traffic on Yonge Street in the afternoon of the attack.  At first he thought the Minassian van was an escape car from a robbery.
He watched it hit a woman, throwing her into a bus shelter where it was raining glass fragments.  The sword crossed the traffic and hurried to help.
The woman sat frozen in her seat.  He made her talk and found out her name – it was Riddle – but her answer to when she was born was nonsense.
Armed with first aid training, Sword knelt behind her and held her still.  He had no blood and was breathing normally, so they waited together, motionless, for help.
A policeman passed by.
“There is a truck coming down the sidewalk and hitting people!”  The sword shouted, and so the officer took off.
A woman came out of a nearby salon to help – Sword vividly remembers her long, painted nails, but never took her name.  She used these nails to separate pieces of glass from Riddle’s eyes, nostrils and mouth and brought her a towel.
Thirty minutes later firefighters passed.  Sword said Riddell was seriously injured – he could see the outline of the van bumper in her blue pants – but was not seriously injured.  Firefighters told him Riddell had to lie down, so they took her away from the window and laid her on the sidewalk.  Her sword put a towel under her head on both sides.
Firefighters went ahead, he said, because others needed more help.
At that moment, Riddle began to moan in pain, coming out of shock.  After 45 minutes, ambulances arrived and took her to an ambulance.
Riddell does not remember the attack, for which she is grateful, but she believed that for a year she was hit in a different location.
On the first anniversary of the attack, Spathi saw her for a while at a memorial event.  He visited the stage, hoping it would help him heal from traumatic memories of the day, and it happened to Riddell.
He told her where he had found her and what he had done that day.
“He was very upset because I was told I had been hit in a completely different place,” Riddell said.
A downpour ended their conversation prematurely and Riddle never got his contact details.  He felt bad because he did not thank him properly.
“I was always wondering when I go out for my walks, will I ever meet him again?”  he said.
Several weeks ago, he did.
Spathi saw her leave the gym with a bright smile as he entered, so he stopped her.  Riddle needed a minute to put it on and then her smile came back.
“I finally had the opportunity to thank him, a stranger who helped me that day,” Riddle said.
The meeting also helped Spathi.
“She gave me a huge closure because of her joy in life,” she said.  “It’s a great feeling to know he’s doing so well considering everything he has had to deal with.”
Riddell said she was looking forward to giving her victim’s impact statement in court this week, although she knows it will be difficult.
She started writing it years ago while she was in the hospital, noting that she wrote it for herself and other victims.
“This is my only chance to stand in court and say ‘this is how I feel about it,'” he said.  “It’s an important moment for all of us.”
This Canadian Press report was first published on June 12, 2022.