MONTREAL — Solomon Schechter Academy was rocked last week by the tragic death in a car accident of a toddler who has a six-year-old sister at the school and was due to start pre-kindergarten there himself next September.
“It’s been horrible, horrible,” is how head of school Shimshon Hamerman described his school’s devastated reaction to the death of Asher Touaty-Brennan, who had turned three just two weeks earlier .
“Everybody here has a heavy, heavy heart.”
Asher’s sister, Nehama, a Grade 1 student at the school, had just been picked up May 31 at the end of the school day by her mother, Stacey Brennan, accompanied in the family’s Toyota Sequoia SUV by Asher and five-year-old sister Yael.
Asher’s father, Ron Touaty, was not a passenger in the SUV at the time of the accident.
Minutes after leaving the Cote St. Luc school, driving west along Terrebonne Street in Notre Dame de Grace, the Sequoia was broadsided on the driver’s side by a Ford Tundra 4X4 truck travelling north, at the intersection of Grand Boulevard.
Asher – whom the family affectionately called “Asher Basher” – was reportedly well secured in his car seat in the rear, but was ejected through the back window. His body was found beneath the SUV, which had been flipped onto its passenger side by the force of the impact. The others in the van needed treatment for shock and/or minor injuries.
According to news reports, forensic police investigators were trying to determine whether one of the drivers failed to stop at a red light or was driving at excessive speed, or both. The speed limit on Grand Boulevard is 30 km/h, but area residents said it is routinely ignored.
The school sent a letter to school parents last week explaining that professionals – including from Agence Ometz – were providing guidance to Solomon Schechter to help students, staff, and families cope with the tragedy.
“This a tragedy for the entire Brennan-Touaty family and it is felt by the Solomon Schechter community,” the letter stated.
Hamerman told The CJN that all of Nehama’s teachers were to attend her younger brother’s funeral last Thursday.
