The twin sister of a 35-year-old woman who was killed in a motorcycle accident near Evergreen Brickworks over the weekend says she does not know how to live without her sibling who she describes as her “gift of life.”
Svetlana Koretskaia was killed Saturday night in a motorcycling accident. She was riding with her 46-year-old brother-in-law, Gus Diamantopoulos around 8 p.m. on the Bayview Avenue Extension when they collided with a vehicle making a U-turn.
“(We would ride) any chance we had – weather dependent,” Diamantopoulos told CTV News Toronto. “We enjoyed riding when the weather was nice.”
Police said a 36-year-old man was driving a 2016 Honda Accord in the same direction as Koretskaia and Diamantopoulos and attempted to make a U-turn as he was approaching Beltline Trail.
The Honda then collided with the two motorcyclists while making the U-turn.
“It all happened so fast,” Diamantopoulos said. “I immediately reacted and tried to push my bike away as far as I could and I got clipped and I almost lost my balance but somehow I didn’t and there was no reaction time for her whatsoever.”
Koretskaia succumbed to her injuries. Diamantopoulos was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries but he has since been released.
The tragedy has left Diamantopoulos’ wife and the victim’s twin sister reeling.
Anastasia Koretskaia said she and her twin sister always told each other how lucky they were to have each other.
“Every birthday we celebrated and we always said our gifts are each other and we’ll have that for the rest of our lives,” she said. “I can’t even imagine celebrating my next birthday without her.”
She described her deceased twin as a very athletic woman who always wanted to have fun.
“She was so kind, loving and always there,” she said.
Meanwhile, police are still trying to determine what led to the crash.
Police said the U-turn the driver made was illegal because it was made on a curve but they are still investigating other factors that could have led to the collision.
“Part of that collision was an action by the driver, but we are still looking at the actions of the motorcyclists to determine if anything they did contributed to this collision as well,” Const. Clint Stibbe told CTV News Toronto on Monday.
Police noted that there have been 191 motorcycle collisions in Toronto so far this year, including three fatalities.
Despite the high number of crashes involving motorcyclists, Svetlana Koretskaia is now the first female motorcyclist to be killed on Toronto roads according to police records dating back to 1995.
With files from CTV News Toronto’s Tracy Tong