Whitehorse Daily Star

Fatal rollover victims identified

The Yukon coroner's office has identified two men who died in separate single-vehicle collisions last week.

By Elizabeth Hames on July 13, 2010

The Yukon coroner's office has identified two men who died in separate single-vehicle collisions last week.

The drivers have been charged with impaired driving in both cases.

Last Thursday night, Valentino Vella of Vancouver died after the vehicle he was in veered into a ditch and rolled over just south of Pelly Crossing on the Klondike Highway.

Five of the six occupants of the Kia Sedona minivan were wearing seatbelts and sustained no serious injuries. The men had been working on the refurbishment of the bridge at Pelly Crossing.

Vella, 27, was not wearing a seatbelt and was ejected from the vehicle. He suffered severe trauma to his entire body and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Christopher John Maxwell-Smith, 25, also of Vancouver, has been charged with impaired driving causing death, as well as other related offences.

Maxwell-Smith was released on a $500 cash recognizance with conditions. His was also required to forfeit his passport.

A similar mishap occurred late last Friday afternoon when 40-year-old Alexander Dickson of Teslin died in a single-vehicle collision on the Chadburn Lake Road in Whitehorse.

The vehicle he was in had flipped onto its roof and was in the bushes near the dusty gravel road.

Emergency Medical Services personnel found Dickson unconscious, not breathing and without a pulse. They tried to revive him, but were unsuccessful.

William Gilbert Johnson, 46, of Whitehorse, has been charged with a number of offences, including impaired driving causing death. He was remanded into police custody.

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