The first car crash redefined the life of Jill Le Clair. The second, last Saturday, ended it. https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2020/10/30/the-first-car-crash-redefined-the-life-of-jill-le-clair-the-second-last-saturday-ended-it.html

Those who knew Le Clair told me she was a remarkable woman. An anthropologist, professor, and advocate, she worked hard to overcome the effects of a car crash she experienced in the mid-1990s, only to be killed in a second collision 25 years later.

In the first collision Le Clair suffered a neck injury that would leave her in pain for the rest of her life. She was forced to leave her job teaching at Humber College, but continued her academic work.

After the crash her focus shifted to disability issues. She founded the
Global Disability Research in Sport and Health and wrote papers emphasizing the need for more inclusivity for athletes with disabilities, which friends said mirrored the physical challenges she was facing.

“People nearly always underestimate you if you have a disability. It’s just how it is,” Le Clair said in a 2010 interview on TVO’s the Agenda with Steve Paikin.

Le Clair would show up at academic events with a yoga mat, because her pain would sometimes get so bad she would have to lie down.

She even turned that into an opportunity. She would take pictures from the floor, which showed the world from the perspective of of someone facing accessibility challenges. Friends say she had hoped to exhibit them one day.

On Saturday afternoon, Le Clair left her home at the Christie Gardens residence to meet a friend. Police say she was sitting on her walker when a driver left the road, mounted the sidewalk, and killed her. She was 73.

My thanks to the people who knew Le Clair and agreed to share her story with me.