b.c. coroner's inquest called into triple-fatal accident following highway 1 police chase
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a coroner’s inquest will be held almost five years after a vehicle speeding in the wrong direction on highway 1 while being chased by police crashed into another vehicle killing three people.
on thursday, the b.c. coroners service said the inquest into the deaths of gabriel johnson choi, 35, hasan khaled ayyad, 29, and allison dawn gilchrist, 43, had been scheduled for dec. 8 to dec. 19, 2025 in burnaby.
according to the independent investigations office of b.c., at 4 a.m. on dec. 29, 2020, the rcmp’s upper fraser valley detachment received a report about a vehicle travelling in the wrong direction on highway 1 near laidlaw, which is half way between chilliwack and hope.
“the rcmp reports that a chilliwack officer located a vehicle travelling westbound at excessive speed in the eastbound lanes near annis road. the vehicle collided head-on with an eastbound vehicle and caught fire. officers’ attempts to extinguish the fire were unsuccessful,” the investigations office reported at the time.
“officers extracted one person from the eastbound vehicle. the person was transported to hospital with serious injuries. officers were unable to remove the driver and a passenger from the (westbound) suspect vehicle, and both were pronounced dead at the scene.”
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the injured person, choi, died the following day. choi was a federal corrections officer who was heading to work when the accident occurred.
the iio is called any time a person is killed or seriously injured during an interaction involving police.
a report was released by the iio in 2022 that cleared the officer who was pursuing the suspect vehicle at high speed in the wrong lane.
“in the end, (the officer) chose to risk his own safety in order to give the only warning that could be given to members of the public travelling east that morning. while in the end this was unsuccessful, likely due to where the collision occurred, in these tragic and very difficult circumstances, it cannot be said that (the officer’s) choice was the wrong one,” wrote then iio chief civilian director ronald j. macdonald.
following the december inquest, the jury will make recommendations to prevent a similar incident from occurring again. the coroner cannot make any ruling around blameworthiness.
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