Drunk driving victim's fiancé speaks out after Regina crash

Eric Sollosy did nothing more than stop at a red light.

And within seconds his fiancée was dead.

“I heard the guy coming. He was going so fast I heard the noise of his tires on the road. It caught my attention. I looked in the mirror and I saw him. I had enough time to know we were getting hit, but not to do anything about it, not enough to say anything,” Sollosy said.

An SUV slammed into the back of Sollosy and Adrienne Daigneault’s vehicle on Albert Street.

 The man behind the wheel has been charged with drunk driving.

“I remember he hit so hard and it felt like we just got launched into the intersection and the car spun around. I looked over and immediately she was unconscious and she was bleeding and the windows were out,” Sollosy said.

“I stopped and I held her head up so she wouldn’t bleed as much, hoping it would make a difference. It didn’t.”

The couple was on their way home from a run to the pharmacy for something to ease Daigneault’s toothache on Oct. 8. Police reported the crash happened around 3 a.m., but Sollosy said it was just after midnight.

Sollosy, 31, said his fiancée was dead on impact. He walked away with minor injuries.

“It just blows my mind it’s not like it was on some random back street at like 3 a.m. on a Tuesday. This was not even 1 a.m. on a Friday night on Albert Street, like the main street in the city. There’s plenty of traffic still. I don’t how someone could be going that fast in town. How someone could be even that drunk that early. It blows my mind.”

Brendan Sugar, 28, was charged with impaired driving causing death.

“I try not to think about the guy who hit us. I try not to think about how he’s walking around like everything’s fine on bail because it just makes me angry and I already have enough hurt. I don’t need to add any more anger to it,” Sollosy said.

“I want to show him her picture and tell him how amazing she was and tell him how he’s taken that all away. I want to send him pictures of our kid and show him how he doesn’t have a mom now.”

Daigneault’s son Aiden from a previous relationship, 9, is now left to grow up without a mother.

“His heart is breaking because he misses his mom so much,” Sollosy said.

“He understands, but every few days he needs to ask to be sure. He asks if his mom’s still an angel.”

Remembering Adrienne Daigneault

Sollosy said Daigenault was the love of his life.

“There’s not words to describe it. I’ve never felt love for anyone like I had from her. It was just complete consuming. Your heart would race, you would just be completely captivated. I would wake up and just look forward to talking to her,” he said.

“We had plans and dreams…and now she’s gone. I miss her so much. I want to send her a message as if she’s just not here today. Like ‘hurry home babe, I miss you a lot today, come back.’ But that won’t do anything.”

Daigneault will be remembered by many for her kindness.

“She always tried to help people. She would give away my stuff to people who needed it because we didn’t need it. She would always give people rides and make sure everyone had what they needed,” Sollosy said.

Sollosy said she helped him get out of depression. He’s been on disability for the last five years after a crash with a semi hurt his foot. He’s had seven surgeries to heal it, but nothing has worked.

“I actually just saw my surgeon a week and a half ago and we’re at the point now where we’re going to amputate my foot in the spring,” he said.

“That actually feels like progress finally because it’s been five years and everything we tried it keeps getting worse.”

New laws

Last month the government introduced harsher drinking and driving penalties. That included raising the cutoff age for zero tolerance from 19-years-old to 21, mandatory ignition interlock periods for repeat offenders and three-day vehicle seizures for drivers blowing a .04 to .08 on their first offence.

Sollosy said the new rules are a step in the right direction, but more needs to be done.

“If you’re someone that’s been drinking and driving before and you haven’t been caught, it’s not going to deter you. It’s not enough of a deterrent,” he said.

“It’s still going to happen. Someone else is going to have to go through what I’m going through.”

If the new rules are approved, they would take effect Jan. 1, 2017.