After deadly collisions, Mennonites share the challenges and joys of horse and buggy travel
CBC
Disclaimer: To respect the core value of humility held by members of the old order mennonite community in Desbarats, CBC News has agreed not to use the full name of the people interviewed in this story.
October 29 started off as an ordinary day for Edwin, a member of the old order Mennonite community near Desbarats.
He was heading to a farm about a kilometer away from his home to help fellow Mennonites build a barn. It's a trip he does every other week, one that involves travelling by horse and buggy on Highway 17.
That morning he enlisted the help of 4-year-old Sparky, a "gentle, willing and quiet-natured" horse raised by him and his family.
Mennonites typically use the shoulder of the highway when they travel this way, but snow, guardrails and wet soil sometimes push them into part of a paved lane.
That's what happened to Edwin that morning.
To "make it easier on his horse," he used part of one of the two eastbound paved lanes.
He says he was looking in his rearview mirror constantly to swerve back on shoulder if a vehicle was to come up behind him. But next thing he knows, he's waking up on the side of a ditch, blood streaks coming down his face.
"I must not have been keeping a sharp eye," he said. "I have no memory of seeing a car coming behind me."
In the aftermath of the collision, he remembers seeing pieces of his buggy scattered everywhere, and his horse lying injured further down in the ditch.
Community members nearby remember hearing the crash, and rushing to the scene.
Edwin's buggy was in much worse condition than that of Eli's, a 29-year-old from a neighbouring Amish community who died in a horse and buggy accident on that same stretch of highway exactly one year ago today.
A community member says he felt sick to his stomach seeing pieces of the buggy scattered around, and that the shock of seeing this accident drained his energy for days.
Friends and family were fearing the worst, but Edwin was lucky. Save for stitches on his head, bruises, a broken clavicle, a fractured left fibula and an elevated heart rate, he was okay.
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