Two Nunavut children killed in separate accidents

SEAN McKIBBON
Nunatsiaq News

IQALUIT— A six-year- old-girl was killed in Pond Inlet when an NTPC pick-up truck backed into her last weekend.

Police say Amina Innuaraq may have been riding in the back of the truck without the driver’s knowledge before she was struck.

The driver was an NTPC employee backing into his driveway on his way to get his boat to hunt narwhal, said Cpl. Don Perret of the Pond Inlet RCMP detachment.

“The driver is pretty badly shaken up by the whole thing,” said Perret. He said the driver of the truck rushed the child to the local nursing station, but attempts to revive her failed.

No alcohol or drugs were involved and no charges will be laid in connection with the incident, he said.

The August 1 accident resembles a mishap in Baker Lake only four days earlier, when a driver accidentally struck and killed a two-year-old girl while backing out of a driveway.

“In that incident the driver noticed a four-year-old boy holding on to his bumper,” said Const. Jennifer Ebert. The man got out of his pick-up truck and told the child not to do that and that it was dangerous.

The man returned to his vehicle and resumed backing out of the driveway paying special attention that the boy was not in the way of the truck, said Ebert.

Unfortunately he didn’t see Maisie Qaqimat behind the truck on the passenger side.

“She would have been right in his blind spot,” said Ebert.

After hearing a bump, the surprised driver stopped his vehicle and got out from the truck to see what had happened. The girl was conscious and seemed unhurt, but police say after she was taken to her home she had to be taken to the local nursing station because of her head injury.

She was later taken to hospital in Churchill, Manitoba where she was pronounced dead.

As in the Pond Inlet case, no alcohol or other substances were involved and Ebert said no charges were to be laid.

Funeral services for Qaqimat were to have taken place in Baker Lake on Wednesday. As of press time, funeral arrangements for Innuaraq were not finalized.