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Crash kills motorcyclist

Flower tributes and questions remain in the aftermath of a motorcycle crash in Red Deer that left a 37-year-old man from the Clive area dead and a woman injured on the weekend.

Flower tributes and questions remain in the aftermath of a motorcycle crash in Red Deer that left a 37-year-old man from the Clive area dead and a woman injured on the weekend.

A subdued crowd gathered on Sunday to view the scene of a single-vehicle collision that happened on Saturday afternoon at the corner of Overdown Drive and Ohio Close in Oriole Park.

Some residents of the neighbourhood questioned how a motorcycle could have skipped the curb at a bend in the road, bounced across the grass, then thrown the driver as well as a female passenger onto another grassy boulevard across the entry road to the close.

They also questioned why the deceased male was not wearing a helmet.

One shaken resident wondered if the biker had been planning on going for only a short spin that somehow ended in a deadly crash.

“It was a nice afternoon, he was taking (a) girl for a ride . . . it’s so sad. Everybody is choked up about it. It happened in our neighbourhood,” said the man, who like all the bystanders, did not want his name used.

A 14-year-old boy who lives nearby was alerted by the impact noise and came running seconds after the collision happened on Saturday.

“It was a loud boom. I thought something blew up. It sounded like a car rear-ending something real hard,” he said.

According to Red Deer City RCMP, police responded to an emergency call at about 4:15 p.m. about a single-vehicle crash at that Oriole Park intersection.

Officers found a male driver dead at the scene and a female passenger with non-life-threatening injuries, who was transported to Red Deer hospital. An initial investigation found the male driver, from the Clive region, had not been wearing a helmet.

His name was not released and RCMP are continuing the investigation. Const. Lee Watt of Red Deer Traffic Services could not say on Sunday whether speed was a factor.

Skid marks on the grassy boulevard show the motorcyclist was driving southeast on Overdown Drive before his vehicle skipped the curb.

The youth who saw the immediate aftermath of the accident said the driver ended up being thrown onto a grassy boulevard across the entrance to Ohio Close, landing near a fire hydrant. The female landed nearby, next to a yield sign.

He remains unsettled by that sight.

The ambulances, police cars and fire trucks that responded to the collision were long gone on Sunday, but the hydrant was surrounded by small pots of flowers, including a note expressing sorrow “for your loss.”

lmichelin@www.reddeeradvocate.com