Little Aurora is lucky to be here. But her birth made it clear that an unborn baby is a human being before birth who deserves protection and who can be subject to tragic injures in the womb that affect her entire life.
Six-months-pregnant at the time, Brandi Lepine, 17, and her friend Taylor Litwin, 21 were killed after a car accident in Canada last July. Jeremiah Jobb, 21, was allegedly drunk when he hit the victims’ car.
Lepine died just minutes after baby Aurora Sky was delivered by emergency C-section. Aurora suffered severe brain swelling in crash and will be disabled her whole life and she is being cared for by Lepine’s mother, Josephine Ledoux, who said goodbye to her daughter and welcomed a granddaughter on the same night.
It’s a gift, because she’s (Aurora’s) come so far and it’s going to be a year tomorrow. And she has fought a lot, just to be here today,’ Ledoux told CKOM. ‘It’s kind of hard for me because honestly my daughter isn’t here to celebrate her baby’s first birthday and that’s what’s hard for me to understand… But at least family will be around her, and friends, and she knows that she’s loved.’
Last week, Ledoux attended the preliminary trial for the allegedly drunk driver who crashed into her daughter’s car.
Jeremiah Jobb, 22, is facing several charges including impaired driving causing death. Family members of the victims were outraged when Jobb was granted bail in August la
st year.
CKOM reported one member of the family pounded the walls and screamed in the halls of a Prince Albert courtroom when Judge Morris Baniak released Jobb.
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As a condition of his bail, the judge ordered that Jobb remain at his mother’s home and only leave to go to work. He was also forbidden from drinking alcohol or going anywhere where he could buy booze.
Police said Jobb was drunk when he crashed his car. Litwin died at the scene while Lepine was rushed to hospital where she died. The best friends were on their way to a 7Eleven to satisfy a hankering for a slushy drink.
Days later, Lepine and Litwin were buried side by side under a tree at a local cemetery.
Litwin’s griefstricken mother, Bev Gobeil, said she still struggles with her daughter’s death and can’t imagine how Ledoux is coping with a special-needs child.
‘I don’t know how that woman can do it, man. She’s got to be strong,’ Gobeil told CTV News. ‘It would be hard to handle that baby. Every day you think of your girl.’
Both families have planned a potluck supper tonight at a church to remember the young women and celebrate Aurora’s birthday.
