The fact that James Verdoni's wife was cleaning off the windshield of her SUV some distance away from the paved roadway when she was hit and killed by a snow plow on Elgin Rd. near London has the Mississauga man puzzled and upset.
"I would not be as angry if she was standing in the middle of the road in blowing snow," Verdoni told CTV News in an interview after visiting the scene where his wife was killed Sunday in a snowstorm, adding that his wife was nowhere near the actual pavement when she was hit.
"I wonder what they tell these guys (plow operators) when they get on the road?" said Verdoni.
His wife Amber, who had just turned 50, was struck and killed by a snowplow as her children watched in horror from the family van. Verdoni, a nurse at Toronto General Hospital, was apparently trying to clear ice and snow from underneath the windshield wipers on the driver's side of the vehicle.
OPP Sgt. Dave Rektor said a snowplow hit Verdoni's van, which then struck the Erin Mills woman, who was standing outside her vehicle.
Her husband travelled to London by train yesterday to pick up his children, who had been treated for shock after the accident, and bring them back to their Erin Mills home. The tow truck operator was also treated for shock.
At St. Clare Elementary School, where one of the couple's children attends Grade 8, grief counsellors from the Dufferin-Peel Catholic Separate School Board were called in yesterday.
Amber Verdoni was a popular figure at the Glen Erin Dr. school, where she was the chief organizer of monthly pizza lunches at the school.