A 37-year-old American man is dead following a single snowmobile collision in Haliburton County on Friday night (February 10).

At around 10:40 p.m., members of the Haliburton Highlands detachment of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and emergency services responded to a report of a single snowmobile collision on an Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Club trail between Little Hawk Lake and Big Hawk Lake in the Township of Algonquin Highlands.

The snowmobile had crashed into a tree and the lone rider was pronounced dead at the scene.

The victim is a 37-year-old man from Lancaster, New York, but police have not released his name.

Police are continuing to investigate the collision.

Anyone with any information in relation to the investigation is asked to call the Haliburton Highlands OPP at 1-888-310-1122 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477).

This story has been updated with a correction issued by the OPP for the location of the collision.

The new Quaker Foods City Square in downtown Peterborough, splash pads, and the city’s trails and cycling are some of the projects the City of Peterborough supported using its share of gaming revenue from the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) for hosting Shorelines Casino Peterborough.

On Friday (February 10), Peterborough mayor Jeff Leal met with representatives from OLG and Great Canadian Entertainment, which operates Shorelines Casino Peterborough, at Quaker Foods City Square to recognize how the funding is being used.

Every quarter, OLG provides payments to the City of Peterborough as a host community of a gaming site, based on a graduated scale of gaming revenue at the hosted site. The total payment for the 2022 fiscal year was $1,588,620.

Since Shorelines Casino Peterborough opened in October 2018, the City of Peterborough has received $8,687,987 from OLG.

The city used $677,909 from its OLG revenue to help pay for the construction of Quaker Foods City Square, a family-friendly community space that includes a refrigerated outdoor skating rink in the winter and water play features in the summer.

“By investing the OLG revenue in facilities such as the refrigerated outdoor skating rink for residents to enjoy throughout the winter and family-friendly splash pads for summertime fun, the city is enhancing the quality of life and well-being for the community,” Leal says in a media release issued by the city.

The city has also used the OLG revenue to support building new splash pads, to fund its contribution toward the construction of the new Canadian Canoe Museum, to support initiatives under the city’s Central Area Community Improvement Plan initiatives, and to expand the city’s trails and cycling network.

According to the media release, the city plans to use $1.8 million from the OLG revenue to invest in the city’s urban forest, including tree planting and maintaining the health of the community’s urban forest canopy, in 2023.

“OLG is proud to be a vital part of Peterborough for more than for years and we look forward to continuing to build on that support,” says OLG’s senior municipal relations manager Kathleen Devine. “And we appreciate the contribution of gaming site employees at Shorelines Casino Peterborough in making life in Peterborough that much richer.”

Mental health crisis calls made to 911 police dispatches across the country have been increasing in recent decades, most recently during the pandemic. Peterborough police now have three Mobile Crisis Intervention Teams in place in the communities of Peterborough, Lakefield, and Cavan-Monaghan Township to respond to these calls and help get people the support they need.

Two of the teams are a partnership between the Peterborough Police Service and the Canadian Mental Health Association Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge (CMHA HKPR) and the third is a partnership with Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC).

In each team, a mental health worker, nurse, or social worker is partnered with a police officer to respond to mental health crisis incidents and to follow up on cases where mental health or social services may help.

“As a service we have been working extremely hard with our community partners to put the funding and people in place,” says Peterborough police inspector Jamie Hartnett in a media release. “The service understands and believes in the success these partnerships can have for our community. They are making a difference.”

The origins of the first Mobile Crisis Intervention Team go back to 2011, when a CMHA HKPR outreach worker began working out of the Peterborough police station. The outreach worker rode along with police officers, attending mental health calls and following up on the calls. The Mobile Crisis Intervention Team was born in 2018 when a police officer was added to the unit.

In 2021, Peterborough police responded to 805 calls related to mental health — an increase of 46 per cent from 2018 — with the Mobile Crisis Intervention Team attending or following up on 574 of these calls. Despite the increase in the number of calls, there has been a 37 per cent decrease in apprehensions and arrests under the Mental Health Act over 2020.

The second Mobile Crisis Intervention Team partnership with CMHA HKPR was supported by surplus funds re-allocated by the City of Peterborough in the Peterborough Police Service’s 2021 budget. Funding for the partnership with PRHC, which began last November, is funded by a provincial grant until March 31.

“Partnerships like these are absolutely vital, and we are so pleased to be working closely with Peterborough Police Service and CMHA HKPR to provide community-based care, when and where it is needed, for people who are experiencing a mental health crisis,” says PRHC vice-president Sean Martin. “Among many other important benefits, the Mobile Crisis Intervention Team model has been shown to reduce the number of patient visits to the hospital’s emergency department and crisis response unit.”

CMHA HKPR also participates in Mobile Crisis Intervention Teams with Ontario Provincial Police detachments in Peterborough, the City of Kawartha Lakes, and Haliburton County, in addition to its teams with the Peterborough Police Service.

“We are extremely grateful for the partnership with Peterborough Police Services over the past 12 years through the Mobile Crisis Intervention Team,” says CMHA HKPR‘s CEO Mark Graham. “This model has proven successful and we are excited that the team is expanding to include more skilled community partners, like PRHC.”

Hastings resident Mark Cameron has issued an urgent appeal for earthquake medical relief on behalf of the Canadian International Medical Relief Organization (CIMRO), an internationally recognized non-governmental organization he cofounded that provides medical education and relief in disaster zones — and a Peterborough veterinary clinic is already stepping up to help.

The magnitude 7.8 earthquake that devastated southern Turkey and northern Syria on Monday morning (February 6) has now claimed more than 19,300 lives (most in Turkey) and injured more than 63,000 people, with more than 113,000 search and rescue workers still looking for survivors trapped under the rubble as time runs out.

“Most people trapped, sadly, will not survive,” says Cameron, who is also CIMRO president, in his appeal. “In triage cases, we as medical responders try to offer the most help to the neediest of people, who we can practically save. Our experience tells us over the next five to seven days we will be dealing with sepsis (life-threatening infections) from crushed and damaged extremities, toes, feet, legs, and arms. Crush injuries are life threatening over a few days if not treated.”

Before cofounding CIMRO in 2011 with Syrian physician Khaled Almilaji and Toronto pediatrician Jay Dahman, Cameron spent more than three decades working as a paramedic with Peterborough Emergency Medical Services and in his hometown of Hastings as well as Hastings County. He received the Governor General of Canada’s Medal of Bravery in 2014 for direct line-of-duty action and the Meritorious Service Medal in 2017 for his work in Syria. A 1989 graduate of Humber College’s Primary Care Paramedic program, he also received a 2022 Premier’s Award.

Over the years, CIMRO has been involved in numerous medical missions in the Gaziantep (Turkey) and Aleppo (Syria) regions helping with critical front-line combat medicine, as well as vaccination and chemical response training.

“CIMRO is positioned uniquely with respect to this crisis,” Cameron explains. “We already have an established presence on the ground in the region. We are trusted by the locals and have the legal relationships required to enter and exit the most devastated areas. Remember, there is still a war going on in Syria. Many very fine aid organizations will not be able to operate in the poorest and most needy areas. CIMRO can. We literally know most of the physicians in the region. We know the trusted medical teams. We have our own physician leaders operational presently, with ‘boots on the ground’.”

VIDEO: A survivor is pulled from the rubble (video by CIMRO physician)

To treat as many injured people as possible with life-saving surgeries, CIMRO needs a large supply of antibiotics, pain killers (morphine, fentanyl, codeine), and sedatives (ketamine for surgeries and xylocaine to suture small wounds). They also need sutures, small needles and syringes, and antiseptic solutions and iodine swabs. While the organization would normally acquire such supplies locally in the region, that is likely not an option because of the scale of the destruction.

Cameron tells kawarthaNOW they also need funds for dialysis-essential drugs and filters to help with dialysis, as “crush injuries die of sepsis and renal dialysis injury.”

He is seeking immediate help from the Canadian government to get the life-saving drugs CIMRO needs, and has asked Conservative Northumberland-Peterborough South MP Philip Lawrence for assistance in working with Health Canada.

“The federal government does not understand how vital my basic medication list is,” he says. “If the feds give me the life-saving drugs I need, then my team of doctors can have them inside Syrian hospitals in one day. We only have three to four days to save some of these people. Time equals death.”

Cameron adds that Bab Al-Hawa Hospital in northern Syria, just a few kilometres from the border with Turkey, needs generators and diesel as their main generator was destroyed. Cameron says they have one day’s worth of diesel left.

Because time is of the essence, Cameron is asking for donations to be made directly by e-transfer marked “Earthquake Relief” to cimro.cme@gmail.com. He tells kawarthaNOW the organization is working to set up a crowdfunding page as well.

“We can put life-saving aid into surgically precise areas of care instantly — literally instantly, as we have access to Turkish bank accounts and have professionals on the ground,” he says. “Time is critical. We will begin to lose survivors in medically sensitive areas within a few days. We will take zero per cent of this money in overhead; all of it will go directly into the hands of trusted CIMRO medical professionals, who are presently on the ground, in the most needed regions.”

CIMRO has around 16 “boots on the ground” in the region, although most are homeless and even shoeless as they fled in the night during the earthquake. However, the biggest challenge CIMRO is facing right now, according to Cameron, is a lack of funds.

“We can’t fly stuff 8,000 kilometres (from Canada to Turkey and Syria),” he says. “We need to get supplies there. Our warehouse is buried. We need cash, plain and simple.”

Cameron is a friend of Peterborough veterinarian Dr. Kristy Hiltz and her husband David McNab, a retired OPP officer. Upon learning of CIMRO’s appeal, Hiltz launched a fundraiser through Sherbrooke Heights Animal Hospital with the goal of purchasing 15 boxes of suture material that CIMRO can use repair wounds of those injured during the earthquake.

In the veterinary clinic’s “Suitcase Full of Suture” fundraiser, people can donate $5 to support the purchase of a single package of suture or $150 to support the purchase of a box. Sherbrooke Heights Animal Hospital will be matching the donations up to $500.

Donations should be made as soon as possible, given the urgent need. All donations can be dropped off at the veterinary clinic at 1625 Sherbrooke Street West in Peterborough. For more information, call 705-745-5550 and ask for Stacey.

Environment Canada has issued a freezing rain warning for the entire Kawarthas region for Thursday (February 9).

The freezing rain warning is in effect for Peterborough County, the City of Kawartha Lakes, Northumberland County, Haliburton County, and Hastings County.

Precipitation is expected to begin as freezing rain Thursday morning, before transitioning to rain later in the morning or early afternoon as temperatures rise above zero. Ice accretion of a few millimetres is expected.

Surfaces such as highways, roads, walkways and parking lots may become icy and slippery. Take extra care when walking or driving in affected areas. Slow down driving in slippery conditions. Watch for taillights ahead and maintain a safe following distance.

In addition to the freezing rain warning, a special weather statement remains in effect for much of the Kawarthas region.

The special weather statement forecasts heavy rain with total amounts of 15 to 25 mm before tapering to showers in the evening, with strong southwesterly winds gusting from 60 to 90 km/h developing early Thursday evening and diminishing later in the night.