Manitoba mother searching for answers after son’s fatal crash
Posted December 19, 2023 4:15 pm.
Last Updated December 20, 2023 9:16 am.
Steven Lagimodiere was driving to the store to pick up a loaf of bread when the crash happened.
His mother Mary Green Lagimodiere says the 36-year-old only made it about five minutes from the house.
“And then he crashed right here into the ditch and hit that concrete retaining wall,” Lagimodiere told CityNews.
“You can see from the tire marks that he never even touched the breaks. He just went straight into that wall.”
Red River North RCMP are investigating Friday’s fatal accident on Henderson Highway in the RM of St. Clements.
Officers say the vehicle swerved across the road before going into the ditch, where it struck a concrete driveway approach. They say Steven was not wearing a seatbelt at the time. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
“We thought it was him ringing the doorbell,” recounted Lagimodiere. “Opened the door, we seen it was the RCMP. I went, ‘oh my God, this does not look good.’ Then they delivered the bad news.”
Steven’s mother wants to know exactly why the crash happened.
“The medical examiner called my husband and said that the car was completely destroyed. They had to use the jaws of life to extract him out. The police already said he was deceased.
“Neighbours down the road here said they heard the loud bang. They live maybe a quarter mile away from here, so it must have been a really loud one.”
She’s spent the last few days thinking of the countless memories she has of her son, who she describes as incredibly funny and caring.
“One of my favourite pictures of Steven is going to his friend’s wedding,” she recalled. “He wasn’t the kind of guy that liked to be all dressed up and he showed up in a tuxedo. All his friends went, ‘oh my God, Steven you’re wearing a tuxedo!’ And he just laughed. ‘Yeah, I wanted to surprise all of you.’
“Steven, he was actually a very funny guy. He was always telling jokes and laughing.”
Steven was kind and would take time out of his day to help others, his mother says.
“That was Steven. He didn’t wanna say no. ‘Sure, I’ll come and help you.’ Or a buddy would phone and say ‘hey I’m moving, do you think you can come and give me a hand?’ ‘Yes, no problem.’ That was him. He always wanted to help people.”
“I’m going to miss him. I’m going to miss that laugh – he had this big hearty laugh all the time.”
—Mary Green Lagimodiere
Early on, Lagimodiere says she knew Steven would be smart when he started talking at a very young age.
“Just before Christmas, and he’s pointing to the Christmas tree and going, ‘what’s that? What’s that?’ He wasn’t just saying one word, now he’s making more words up. That’s the beginning of it. Never shut up after that.
“Very smart guy. He was always teaching us things. He used to always test me on knowledge. I used to go, ‘why are you always testing me, Steven?’ That was Steven, just a fun-loving guy.”
Plea for safe driving around Henderson Highway
The mother is pleading for people to drive safely – including limiting distractions – especially around Henderson Highway, where her family has lived for nearly 36 years.
“There’s going to be more traffic and the one thing that we’ve noticed living up here for 36 years is that there’s a lot of traffic,” she said. “And you can hear it, steady, it’s going, always. And there’s a lot of speeders on Henderson Highway, too.
“It’s changed a lot. We’ve noticed that in the last, I’m gonna say at least the last 10 years, the traffic is getting heavier and heavier all the time.”
Lagimodiere says the family is still reeling from another loss that happened at the end of November. She says they’re devastated to lose two young family members so close to each other.
“A lot of his friends are calling and paying their respects. I’m getting lots and lots of calls. They’re all just in shock, too. I think that’s just normal though, that you’re in shock when somebody dies so young, tragically.
“People care. That makes me happy that there are a lot of caring people out there. It’s not always bad as it always seems.”
Lagimodiere also lost a close friend, Paul Macleod, in October 2022 after a hit-and-run on Notre Dame Avenue and Keewatin Street in Winnipeg.
Lagimodiere wants people to remember how kind her son was, and hopes they keep him in their thoughts this holiday season. Steven would have been turning 37 two weeks into the new year.
“We will still have Christmas because we have small kids in the family. It’s about Santa and stuff like that. We will still do it. We’ll just have two people missing from our family this Christmas.”
