Woman dies after being struck by car in Quebec City, baby delivered safely

A pregnant 27-year-old woman has died after she was struck by a car at a pedestrian crosswalk outside a Quebec City hospital Wednesday morning, but before she succumbed to her injuries, her baby was delivered safely.

The woman was hit by a speeding car at 10:15 a.m., on Laurier Boulevard, a busy thoroughfare, in front of the Laval University teaching hospital (CHUL).

She was hit on a pedestrian crosswalk near the hospital's Centre Mère-Enfant Soleil, which offers care to expectant or new mothers and their young children.

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Emergency workers and the hospital's neonatal team rushed out onto the street to try to save the critically injured woman, according to Radio-Canada.

They were able to deliver the baby, but the mother's injuries were too severe. Her death was confirmed late Wednesday afternoon.

Witnesses to the accident were badly shaken up.

"I heard a car coming really fast," said Emmanuel Savoie, who had been crossing the street at the same time as the pregnant woman. "It happened in just a second or two."

"I reared back, to avoid getting hit by the car. The next thing I saw was a woman go flying two or three metres up in the air."

"You never want to see that," said Rémi Laberge, another witness. He said the driver just missed a pole and hit the woman straight on, and she "flew up into the air like a rag doll."

Car kept going

A spokeswoman for Quebec City police, Marie-Ève Painchaud, said the westbound vehicle that struck the woman kept going, running into two other vehicles stopped at the lights at the next intersection, at Germain-des-Prés Avenue.

It's not known how close the woman was to her due date, but Painchaud said the baby who was delivered was considered to be out of danger.

Driver of car ill?

The 20-year-old driver whose car struck the woman may have suffered some kind of illness and was taken to hospital, Painchaud said. 

A third person, an occupant of one of the other two vehicles that were struck, was also taken to hospital. Police said that person's injuries are not life-threatening.

The westbound lanes of Laurier Boulevard between Germain-des-Près and Jean-de Quen avenues were closed to traffic throughout the day as police collision experts carried out their investigation and have since been reopened.

They were reopened to traffic shortly after 6 p.m. ET.

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