Adam Chmielarz, 31, was struck and killed by a car on Clonmore Dr. on Dec. 17
31-year old Adam Chmielarz was an unforgettable, gentle bear of a man who loved the Pittsburgh Steelers, cooking, snowmobiling and his 1969 Buick LeSabre.
Most of all, however, Chmielarz loved his family and friends who spent the holidays grieving his tragic death and struggling to imagine a world without him.
Chmielarz was struck and killed by a car on Clonmore Drive, west of Queensbury, on Dec. 17. He was directing traffic when he was hit full-on by a red Toyota driven by an unidentified 23-year old man.
In an interview from their home in the hamlet of Utopia, Ontario, just west of Barrie, Chmielarz’s mother, Angie Vivian, described Adam as a genuine person who would go out of his way to help others.
“He was a friend to so many people,” Vivian said. “He was a person to lean on and a shoulder to cry on. He would lift you off your feet. He helped anyone when he could. He listened he loved and he laughed.”
At Chmielarz’s celebration of life ceremony, James Hunt remembered his best friend as someone who knew how to get a laugh out of people and always lit up the room with his larger-than-life personality.
“Adam has blessed us all with lifelong memories that we can hold on to for the rest of our lives,” Hunt said in his eulogy. “It won’t be easy to go through life without you, big guy. But I’ll always cherish the time we spent together. You’ll forever be loved and always in our memories. I love you, brother.”
Chmielarz was good with people and good with his hands.
He started his career at a supply chain logistics company, working his way up from customer service to Operations Manager. It was a job that would take him from Toronto to Calgary and the UK.
After working for an oil rigging company in Saskatchewan, Adam returned to Toronto in August 2019 to a job with Turnkey Site Solutions, a shoring contractor. He started work as a supervisor at the Clonmore Towns construction site just three days before he died.
Two investigations underway
Parallel investigations are now underway by Toronto Police and the Ontario Ministry of Labour, which steps in whenever somebody is killed on the job.
TPS Detective-Constable Sam Patil said it could take three months before a decision is made whether to charge the driver of the Toyota.
Among other things, police are analyzing video, including home security camera footage provided by Clonmore residents, to determine if speed was a factor in the collision.
One of the videos in police possession was taken just before the collision and shows a westbound red car driving noticeably faster than all the other vehicles. You can see the red car drive through the frame from left to right at about the :50 mark.
Police are not saying at this point if the footage depicts enough distance to analyze the speed of the car.
Police on the scene of the collision told Birch Cliff News it appeared that the driver never saw Chmielarz because witnesses said the car never slowed down.
Vivian said the family was told by a surgeon at St. Mike’s Hospital that Adam died from blunt force trauma.
“I think people [should] bloody well slow down and have respect those people out there trying to work. They’re only doing their job,” Vivian said.
The family has made plans for an in-person gathering to celebrate Adam’s life on Sat. May 29th provided that’s allowed under pandemic guidelines.
