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~~`Carnage Alley': Ontario's Highway 401 was a road of death in 1999.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service

| December 21, 1999 | Seidel, Jeff | COPYRIGHT 1999 Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service. (Hide copyright information)Copyright

DETROIT _ A 114-mile stretch of road in Ontario claimed Teenie Niedoliwka and 27 others in 1999.

Her white Grand Am veered to the right, off the road and across the soft gravel shoulder, a deadly feature of Highway 401, the main link between Detroit and Toronto. The car skidded side to side. Khriesteenia Niedoliwka jerked the steering wheel and muscled the car back onto the road, reduced to one lane for construction, but now it was headed for a cement barrier.

``Oh God!'' Todd Huberty screamed from the passenger seat, unaware that this is a deadly 114-mile stretch of Canadian highway. From early spring until Thanksgiving weekend, 28 people would die on this road between Windsor and London, sparking a review by the Canadian Ministry of Transportation and an ongoing inquiry by the coroner's office.

Khriesteenia yanked the steering wheel to the right. The car began to flip and she was thrown out. The car came to a stop, upside down, between two weeping willow trees.

``Khriesteenia,'' Todd screamed. ``Where are you?''

She was 30 feet away in a field of wildflowers, unconscious, bleeding from her mouth and nose, her heart beating slowly.

X X X

They hang out in the picnic shelter at Thurl Cook Park, in Plainwell, Mich., about 10 minutes north of Kalamazoo.

Khriesteenia Niedoliwka (pronounced Chris-TEEN-a Ned-o-LIF-ka) is the shy one, quiet and unassuming. Everybody calls her Teenie because she stands 5 feet tall and weighs 105 pounds. Blond hair, blue eyes. She is an 18-year-old princess.

``I knew I loved her a week after we started dating,'' says Todd, a year older.

They sit on a picnic table, slurping Frosties before going out to eat.

``She would order a big plate of food and then eat a quarter of it, just so she could have a little taste of everything,'' Todd says.

Taste everything. See everything. Don't waste a single weekend. She wants to travel to California and Chicago and Canada. She has wanted to go to Niagara Falls since the third grade.

The fastest way to get there from Michigan is down Highway 401.

X X X

March 11

12:20 p.m. _ daylight, clear visibility and dry road conditions.

Robert A. Perrault, 42, of St. Thomas, Canada, his wife, Susan, 36, and Ernest R. MacKinnon, 34, of Talbotville, die on Highway 401 after being hit from behind by a bus.

Government report: Driver error.

Deidre Niedoliwka, Teenie's mother, sits up in bed, startled from a nightmare.

``What's wrong?'' asks her husband, Tom.

``I had the most horrendous nightmare,'' she says. ``I dreamed Khriesteenia was killed in a car accident.''

Deidre can't remember details, except one, vivid and haunting: She was standing at the end of the driveway when the police officer gave her the news.

X X X

April 5

11:50 a.m. _ daylight, clear visibility and dry road conditions.

Gauranga Gupta of Scarborough is driving east. The left tires drop off the roadway and catch the gravel. The car crosses the median and hits a trailer. His wife, Tanusri Gupta, 57, is killed.

Government report: Driver error.

As a senior at Plainwell High School, Teenie manages a local Hungry Howie's Pizza and hires Todd to deliver pizzas in 1998. They started dating two months later.

Teenie was born in Detroit and attended L'Anse Creuse High School in Mt. …

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