‘One of a kind’: Family, friends mourn loss of Stoney Creek woman killed in QEW crash
The Stoney Creek woman killed in a collision on the Queen Elizabeth Way last week is being remembered by family and friends as a social butterfly who lived to put others ahead of herself.
Christine Nickerson, 24, died after she was struck on the Niagara-bound QEW, near Centennial Parkway in Hamilton, just before 7 p.m. Feb. 17.
She was definitely fun. Very, very outgoing. She'd make a friend in a heartbeat," said her mother, Sherry McDonald. She'd be walking down the street with her friends and next thing you know she's missing, and when they turned around she'd be talking to someone, a complete stranger, who just looked like they were having a bad day."
Initially a two-vehicle crash, Burlington OPP said a third vehicle hit Nickerson while she checked for damage to her car and spoke to the other driver involved.
OPP Sgt. Kerry Schmidt said Wednesday no charges are expected to be laid in connection to the fatal collision. Speed and impairment have been ruled out as contributing factors.
Nickerson, a personal support worker, was on her way home from work at an assisted living facility in Burlington at the time of the crash, said McDonald.
In a phone interview, the 56-year-old recalled she was just getting ready for bed when her mother - who lives with McDonald and Nickerson at a home in Stoney Creek - hollered the police were outside their front door.
For a split second, you think, What did my daughter do? Did she get arrested?'" said McDonald. But as quick as you think about that, you think, Wait a minute. They don't come to the door for those reasons.' But I was shocked when they told me she died."
McDonald said her daughter was a free-thinking young woman with a knack for socializing and making others feel good.
A social butterfly," said close friend Chelsey Moody, who met Nickerson about a decade ago in middle school. You always met so many people around her because she had so many groups of friends."
Nickerson, too, was a tough-minded person who carried a certain swagger, recalled her father Darrin Nickerson, noting she developed those traits while a student at Westmount Secondary School.
She was bullied a bit in high school," he said. But she never backed down. She held her ground, spoke her mind, didn't follow the herd. She did the same for her friends, too."
Nickerson's engaging personality was reflective of her job as a personal support worker at Bethany Residence, a Burlington facility that offers care to people facing cognitive impairments and psychiatric illness.
In March 2021, when the Ontario government launched a tuition-free PSW program to bolster the sector's ranks amid COVID-19, Moody convinced Nickerson to apply. It would only be a few months before the pair were working together at Bethany.
We had our first job together when were 15 and now, working a full year together at Bethany, it felt like it all came full circle," Moody said. It was kind of like the length of our friendship came back to the same place, being able to work together and make a difference."
Moody said Nickerson loved her job and uplifted residents with her humour and wholehearted care.
She was always the person that can make you laugh, a very selfless person who put others before herself. You couldn't find a way of being sad around her," Moody said. She was one of a kind. There won't ever be another person like her."
Sebastian Bron is a reporter at The Spectator. sbron@thespec.com