"He was a very strong person.”

Denis Chabot, the 34-year-old Whitehorse tire mechanic who was crushed under a semi truck he was servicing in November 2011, took with him a wealth of qualities that cold autumn afternoon, his former partner told the Star recently.

"He was hard-working, he was dedicated,” Kristy Lerch said in an interview.

"How do you put it into words?”

Lerch, a Whitehorse physiotherapist, recalled Chabot's simultaneous stoicism and warm-heartedness, his self-deprecating prankishness and commitment to self-improvement and his love of the outdoors, loyalty and poetry-laced romantic side.

"I think his sense of humour was the first thing I really liked,” Lerch said.

"He said to his friend, "Yeah, I met this girl and she laughs at my jokes.' And they're like, ‘She laughs at your jokes? She really likes you....'”

Chabot, originally from Sherbrooke in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, shared Lerch's passion for exploring the Yukon landscape.

"He was a natural climber,” she said. "I'm not a natural anything.”

On their first date in February 2011, Chabot introduced Lerch to the trails around Dewey Lake near Skagway, nestled among glacial peaks and snow-encrusted valleys.

"There was five feet of snow on the trail. It took hours,” Lerch said.

"Maybe not the greatest first date....”

It worked out nonetheless. She took him to plays and concerts in Whitehorse and opened the door to the local arts scene, "especially the Guild (Hall) — he really liked it.”

He brought out her adventurous side, hiking and skiing with her weekly during the winter.

On top of his playfulness — he often emailed Lerch goofy photos, like one of himself shortly before he died with half a grapefruit atop him, mimicking a head lump — Chabot held a serious attitude toward his work at Integra Tire.

"He was focused on doing a good job at work, he was focused on being the best person he could be,” Lerch said.

A passion for self-improvement was evident in emails he sent Lerch about performance. They reveal even an A-grade on a June 2011 training exam wasn't good enough for him.

"Finished my test around 2 p.m.: 85 per cent. Same old thing that I keep getting wrong so I copied my failed chapter in a file and sent it to my email so I will be finally able to study my wrong answers,” Chabot wrote.

Integra Tire co-owner Paul Bubiak testified to Chabot's work ethic in territorial court during the trial, which saw him and his company as well as North 60 Petro and its supervisor Frank Taylor accused of breaching workplace safety law.

"Denis loved to work on the trucks,” Bubiak told the courtroom last December during the three-week hearing.

"He was one of the most competent people we had for that job.”

Chabot was often more than willing to go out on service calls to assist truck drivers in trouble hundreds of kilometres from Whitehorse, Bubiak added.

A territorial court judge ruled in January that Integra Tire, North 60 Petro and Frank Taylor each violated training and safety standards in a collective failure that contributed to Chabot's death.

Lerch said he, like any human being, had his faults.

"I don't want to say he's perfect .... He could be stubborn and he had his opinions and he had a temper just like I did ... but we never yelled at each other,” she said.

"He was a very passionate and emotional person, and I think that's one of the things I liked about him, because I could be the same way.”

Lerch added that he had overcome difficult childhood experiences to flourish in a new environment: "I think one of the things I respected about him the most was that he'd been through some hard times from a young age.”

The couple knew each other for a about a year before he died.

Lerch, originally from Calgary, moved north from Edmonton in September 2011, having met Chabot at the Bees Knees hostel downtown in the fall of 2010.

"He was so self-deprecating, but really funny.”

Though she initially put him on the "permanent friends list” in her mind, the two became a couple in February 2011.

"Within a month, we both knew,” she said. "He was asking me little questions like where he wants me to marry him.

"When you have that kind of relationship where you're committed to it, and you can resolve conflict reasonably, and every time you do it's stronger because of it — when you have someone like that, it's valuable.

"I want to say it's worth more than gold — but, you know, gold's not worth that much these days,” Lerch added, laughing.

Lerch shared a poem Chabot wrote to her in 2011:

"You are my pretty crocus, appearing in my life after a long period of sleep .... Contemplate the first view, the feeling of comfort after a long period of cold.

"I admire her strength and her tenacity, just her presence reanimates in me my hopes and desires. I don't wish to cage you because you are not mine, although I am yours. I long to be in your presence and look forward to discovering the cycle of the seasons together,” the poem reads.

"I think that, not just for me and his family, but for the whole community it's a huge loss that he died.

"And I know for me, I was devastated.”

On Nov. 15, 2011, the Kenworth semi-truck Chabot had been working on at Integra Tire ran over him, killing him almost instantly.

The tire technician had been putting slits in the tires of the semi truck — siping — to give it better traction on ice and snow. After completing the work, he told Bubiak the tri-axle vehicle was ready for pick up.

Chabot said he would do a final check on the truck before the owner came by for it. When an employee arrived from North 60, he found the vehicle idling, climbed into it and drove out of the garage.

Chabot was partially under the truck and suffered fatal injuries when it moved.

The driver saw what had happened only when he looked in the rearview mirror and noticed Chabot lying on the ground.

Lerch did not find out about the tragedy until later that evening, having gone out for errands.

Several Integra Tire workers arrived at her doorstep that night.

One of them was "sobbing and he just kept saying, ‘He didn't make it, he didn't make it,'” she recalled.

She went to the Whitehorse General Hospital that evening but was not allowed to see him. So she phoned the coroner and said: "I never had a chance to say goodbye.”

Lerch expressed gratitude to a nurse who attended to her deceased partner for hours so that she could see him.

"When I went in, I could see his face and his chest, though there were other areas that were covered up. He just looked like he was sleeping,” she said, tears in her eyes.

"I held his hand. It was almost like I felt like he was waiting for me.

"It's terrible to have to go to the morgue and say goodbye to the person that you were going to spend the rest of your life with.

"But at the same time, it was beautiful.”

Out of a total of 14 charges against the four parties on trial, all but three were dismissed or stayed — meaning they could potentially be resurrected within one year.

The judge found that the driver who ran over Chabot on the chilly afternoon of Nov. 15, 2011 had received no hands-on training from Taylor nor North 60 related to walk-around procedures, "designed to detect obvious problems with the vehicle as well as any hazards that would result from its movement,” Judge John Faulkner said.

He added that had the driver done a proper walk-around, he would have seen the jacks and torque wrench Chabot had been using but not Chabot himself.

"This would have alerted (the driver) to the fact that the work was not yet complete.”

All charges were related to alleged breaches of safety training and procedures set out in the territorial Occupational Health and Safety Act.

Taylor and Integra Tire face penalties of up to $150,000 each for the first-time offences, with the possibility of 12 months' imprisonment for Taylor, according to the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

North 60 may face steeper punishment, since second offences warrant up $300,000 in penalties.

In 2010, North 60 was fined $1,000 for failing to report a serious injury to a safety officer.

The sentencing date is set for April 2.

The first part of this two-part series and a lengthy letter from Lerch were published last Friday.