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GoFundMe account created to help family of woman who was killed crossing a Dartmouth street

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HALIFAX, N.S. -

A GoFundMe account has been created to help the family of a woman who was struck and killed while crossing a street in Dartmouth Wednesday.

Suete Chan, 27, had moved to Nova Scotia from Hong Kong to work as the marketing manager for Fairechild Clothing.

She was just days away from her 28th birthday and had plans to celebrate by attending her first ever hockey game. However, as she walked to work, everything changed.

“She would talk to her parents on her way to work every day on the phone,” says Tabitha Osler, Chan’s boss.

“I know she was talking to them when she got hit.”

Chan’s parents, who live in Hong Kong, would learn their daughter was struck by a vehicle at a crosswalk on Pleasant Street and died later that day in hospital.

Halifax Regional Police ticketed a driver for failing to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk. The ticket has not been tested in court.

Olser remembers her colleague as an avid traveler and photographer, with close friendships.

“She’s just very sweet and pure,” says Osler.

“My role now is to support her family, in her honour, in every possible way that I can and I will.”

Osler launched a GoFundMe page to help Chan’s parents and more than $64,000 has been raised.

Osler is also raising questions, like whether the street can be redesigned.

“You should never have a four lane crossing without any sort of notification to slow cars down that they notice,” says Osler.

Area councillor Sam Austin says Chan is the second person to die while walking on that stretch of Pleasant Street in the last two and a half years.

“I spoke to the director of transportation that afternoon,” says Austin.

“Staff are going to take a detailed look at this section where there have been two deaths along this stretch of road.”

Norm Collins, a crosswalk safety advocate has several suggestions on how the road can be improved, including adding a concrete island in the middle of the road, rumble strips ahead of the crosswalk, crosswalk flags and more lights at eye level.

“No one thing is absolute and certainly nothing will guarantee that tragedies won’t occur, but every additional thing and measure that’s put up around these dangerous intersections and crosswalks has to help,” says Collins.

“The rumble strips strike me as a very inexpensive easy (thing) and it’s just another trigger to the driver there’s something happening up ahead.”

Osler plans to have her company Fairechild Clothing pay for Chan’s parents to come to Nova Scotia in the next few days. She says she will help with a translator and whatever is needed.

The money raised through the GoFundMe page will go to Chan’s parents. She was their only child.

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