‘He used his vehicle to pin her against rocks so that he could get out and mutilate her,’ cousin of the 16-year-old victim says. ‘He was trying to chop her head off’
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A Northern Ontario girl who survived being hit by an SUV and a machete attack that severed her hand is recovering in an Ottawa hospital while her assailant, alleged to be her ex-boyfriend, awaits his next court appearance.
The Ontario Provincial Police have not identified the victim or the accused in the Nov. 3 incident in Cobalt, northeast of Sudbury, but have since indicated it was a case of intimate partner violence, according to CTV. The National Post has reached out to the OPP for comment.
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However, a GoFundMe started by the family of 16-year-old victim Kaylie Smith and multiple media reports name her alleged attacker as Philip Rivard-Gagnon, her 18-year-old former boyfriend.
“He used his vehicle to pin her against rocks so that he could get out and mutilate her,” Paige Smith, Kaylie’s cousin and creator of the fundraising effort, told Postmedia’s Sudbury Star, elaborating on the details in her fundraising post.
“He was trying to chop her head off. The wounds — they walk you through it and they told a story. She was fighting. She fought him off, after being run over by a car.”
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‘He mutilated her’
The official statement from the OPP, as reported by the Star, said that officers from the Temiskaming detachment responded to a motor vehicle collision around 6 p.m. and arrived to find a 16-year-old female with life-threatening injuries following an “altercation” with an 18-year-old man who then fled the scene.
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Witnesses reportedly stepped in to offer Kaylie aid before first responders arrived and rushed her to Temiskaming Hospital. She was soon airlifted to the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario to be treated for multiple severe injuries.
“He didn’t just hit her once or twice with a machete. He mutilated her,” Paige told the Star.
Despite the immense trauma, Paige said Kaylie remained awake following the attack and was able to communicate with people rendering first aid.
“This little girl is so strong, she remained conscious so that she was able to give people her attacker’s name, and so that she could tell them what her name was and what happened to her,” Paige recounted.
Rivard-Gagnon was arrested later that evening when his mother turned him in to police, according to Paige. He’s been charged with attempted murder; aggravated assault; possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose; and breach of conditional sentence order.
According to CBC, the latter charge is related to an assault on Smith’s stepfather in May, the sentence for which – house arrest and other conditions – came down on Oct. 29, just days before the alleged attack on Kaylie.
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Court documents cited by CTV show Rivard-Gagnon wasn’t allowed to leave his home in Haileybury at the time of the incident, unless for “medical emergencies, going to and from school, work, court, religious services, appointments and assessment, treatment or counselling sessions.”
OPP Community Liaison Officer Const. Martin Thibault in nearby Temiskaming Shores told the Star that “the accused is an 18-year-old male and as a result, is considered an adult in the Canadian justice system.”
Rivard-Gagnon, being held at the North Bay Jail, appeared via video conference in the Superior Court of Justice in Temiskaming Shores on Tuesday. He remains in custody with his hearing set over until Nov. 26, according to Postmedia’s Northern News this week.
None of the charges against him on Nov. 3 have been proven in court.
‘Such a strong kid’
In Ottawa, Kaylie is surrounded by a small group of close family members there to support her and her mother, Cindy, during what promises to be a lengthy recovery.
“I just thank God she’s alive, and I sure hope there’s justice for this,” her mom told CBC. “Nobody deserves to go through this.”
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Paige is among the family at Kaylie’s bedside and remarked on her cousin’s will to live.
“Even the doctors here are in awe of her strength,” she said. “The fact she is already trying to move is blowing their minds. She’s fighting the sleep. She wants to be awake. She wants to speak.”
Kaylie awoke on Friday and was able to watch a portion of a candlelight vigil held for her in Cobalt on the weekend. According to individuals protesting outside the courthouse where Rivard-Gagnon’s hearing was held on Tuesday, she’s now speaking and able to communicate.
“I did get to speak to her for a couple of minutes over the phone and I was so impressed,” Carol Kennedy told sudbury.com. “She is such a strong kid, man she’s strong.”
Paige’s fundraising effort, meanwhile, has brought in more than $103,000, inching closer to a current goal of $110,000.
“Going forward the rest of this GoFundMe is going solely to Kaylie,” Paige wrote in the most recent update. “With an uncertain future ahead and no vehicle insurance to compensate her we want to make sure shes (sic) as set up and stable as possible. Lord knows if she will ever be able to work a normal job again, or do the things she loves.”
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