Tamil lady killed, her husband injered

A Brampton teen has been charged with drunk driving

A Brampton teen has been charged with drunk driving after an early-morning crash killed a 41-year-old mother of two, who was delivering newspapers with her husband. The collision occurred at Bramalea Rd. and Central Park Dr. before 5 a.m. Wednesday, when a Ford Focus and Honda Civic ran into each other. Two people were sent to hospital in critical condition. The crash impact was so powerful that the passenger in the Civic, Sivanermaikkarasi Parameswaran, was ejected from the car. She landed several metres down the road and was pronounced dead by first responders.

Parameswaran was in the car with her husband, Vijayaratnam, 45, who delivers the Toronto Star and Toronto Sun to subscribers in Brampton.

“Where the accident happened was right at the beginning of one of the routes that they do,” said Jim McGuire, who runs Paper Express, a newspaper-delivery company. “Whenever her husband would need help, she would help him.”

The couple — who have two daughters, aged 13 and 9 — immigrated to Canada from Sri Lanka about 15 years ago.

In addition to helping her husband deliver papers, Parameswaran worked a second job at Tim Hortons.

“She was extremely hardworking and extremely dedicated to the kids —that’s all the two of them cared about,” said Ravishankar Kamalachandra, Parameswaran’s nephew.

The children have seen their father, but not yet been told what happened to their mother, Kamalachandra said.

Vijayaratnam Parameswaran, who was driving the Civic, was critically injured in the crash and airlifted to hospital, where he is in stable condition.

An 18-year-old female passenger in the Focus was also airlifted to a Toronto hospital with serious injuries.

The Parameswarans have delivered the Star in the Brampton area for three years and before that had delivered papers downtown.

McGuire said the couple often brought coffee to their fellow carriers, who gather before dawn to assemble papers and make deliveries.

“I talked to 50 of their subscribers today and every one of them had nothing but good things to say,” McGuire said.

Brian Turner, 18, faces seven charges, including impaired operation of a vehicle causing death and dangerous operation of a vehicle causing death. .

Turner suffered minor injuries and was remanded into custody following a brief court appearance Wednesday morning.

Peel Police are appealing to anyone who witnessed the collision to call 905-453-2121, ext. 3170 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477), where you can leave a tip anonymously.

With files from Hayley Kelman