Funeral held for 3-month-old boy killed in wrong-way crash on Hwy. 401
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A funeral was held Wednesday for the three-month-old boy who died in last week’s wrong-way crash on Hwy. 401 in Whitby that also claimed the lives of his grandparents.
On April 29, Ajax residents Gokulnath Manivannan and Ashwitha Jawahar were travelling on the highway with their child, Aditya Vivaan, along with his parents, Manivannan Srinivasapillai and Mahalakshmi Ananthakrishnan, when the driver of a cargo van being chased by Durham cops following a report of a robbery at a LCBO in Oshawa.
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The driver of the van then entered the expressway in the wrong direction.
The chase ended when the van collided with the family’s vehicle, which killed the baby and his grandparents. The parents suffered various injuries but survived the collision.
“We are at a complete loss of words to describe the agony and vacuum in our hearts knowing we can never hold our child Aditya Vivaan, who gave us so many precious memories in such a short time, in our hands again,” Manivannan said in a statement on behalf of his wife and released by Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit on Monday.
“His small toys and clothes remain spread around our home, and we have no courage in us to even enter our home which is filled with our only son’s memories.”
Manivannan’s 60-year-old recently retired father and 55-year-old mother had just arrived from India two days prior to the deadly crash and were in the country to spend time with their new grandchild.
“The pain of my own injuries pales as I grapple with the shock and loss of my parents and my only son on the same evening and the ordeal continues with my wife’s continued suffering from surgeries and repeated flashbacks of the trauma,” Manivannan said. “The aftermath has left an indelible mark on our lives, with profound grief.”
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Manivannan said his parents were cremated on Monday. The baby was to be cremated as well following Wednesday’s service.
The SIU is investigating the crash after the van driver, a 21-year-old man, was killed and a 38-year-old man in the passenger seat was seriously hurt.
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