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The family brought on Adam Wagman, a senior partner at Howie, Sacks & Henry LLP, to help them navigate everything from handling the Toronto Strong funds to navigating insurance. It did shrink it a bit, to make it feel like people care about people they don’t know.” “When this happened, the city was massive, and how could it happen to my mum because there’s three million people and she was one of 26. “It made the city seem very small,” Michael said. The family has been buoyed by the Toronto Strong fund, which raised $3.4 million for the victims of the rampage and their families. These two in particular,” she said of Ally and Michael, who are both renovating their homes to make them wheelchair accessible for when Beverly is well enough to leave the hospital. “To me, the biggest thing is not what I went through,” Beverly said, her voice breaking, “but what they’re going through and what they’ll go through forever. “I just haven’t got the energy,” she said. Alek Minassian, 25, faces 10 charges of first-degree murder and 16 counts of attempted murder.

Bevy smith legs driver#

“And just trying to get through things.”īeverly said she hasn’t been paying to the court proceedings of the alleged driver of the van. “I think we’re still surviving,” Ally said. “We’re very family-first,” Michael said, “and we learned from the best.” While Michael has returned to work, both Ally and Michael have taken temporary leaves from their jobs. “Sunnybrook was great, they have great facilities and doctors. “It’s so nice here,” Beverly said of Bridgepoint. Two weeks ago, she moved to Bridgepoint Health, where she spends her days socializing, gardening and watching the Toronto Blue Jays. “We’re glad to have inherited those bones,” Michael said.Īs Beverly heals, their family is grappling with their new normal.īeverly spent six weeks at Sunnybrook Hospital. There was also damage to her spine, a broken orbital bone, a laceration above her left eye, a fractured right arm that still causes the most pain, bleeding in the brain and an acquired brain injury that’s made it difficult to focus. “Do you want a list?”īeverly’s legs were amputated.

When asked about the extent of her injuries, Beverly chuckles. And when I opened the door, they said, ‘Your mom just got out of surgery.’ ” Three police officers were standing outside. “And then I thought, ‘Something really bad has happened.’ ” “No one had heard from her, it’s five hours later,” Ally recalled. She wasn’t there.Īlly got home from work and “started panicking more.” She called the hotline Sunnybrook set up for people who couldn’t contact their loved ones. Michael phoned security in Beverly’s building, then 911 to request a welfare check at his mom’s condo. The siblings both called their mother Ally sent her an email. Then he phoned his sister.Īlly said she initially thought, “What are the chances? Come on, she’s probably in the library, she’s probably having a coffee or met up with somebody.” He turned on the television, and “they were already interviewing people in front of my mom’s building.” Michael remembers seeing the news on his phone that pedestrians had been struck and injured in North York. And when they’re up, I think of all I’ve got to live for.” “When they’re down, I think about what I’ve lost. “I have my up and down days,” Beverly said, speaking to the Star in the cafeteria of Bridgepoint Health where she now resides, surrounded by her kids, Ally Copsey and Michael Smith, who visit daily. Though she survived the rampage, Beverly and her children know they’ll never return to the life they lived before. Smith was among 16 people who were injured.īoth of her legs were amputated, she sustained a brain injury and nine ribs on her right side were broken, among other injuries. Ten people were killed in the April 23 rampage. when a white van hurtled down Yonge and left a trail of carnage in its wake. The 81-year-old was walking near Yonge St. “I thought, ‘Boy, I’m really lucky to get this today.’ ” “I was so thrilled,” the retired librarian and book-a-day reader recalled.

On a bright and sunny spring day, Beverly Smith headed to her local library in North York to pick up a copy of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.