A Nuu-chah-nulth woman is lucky to be alive after being run over while sleeping in her tent in a downtown Campbell River alley.
Darlene Smith, 53, a Nuchatlaht woman and Christie Indian Residential School survivor, has been living on the streets of Campbell River since 2019. She admits an addiction to alcohol for many years now and is known to the local police, who describe her as a nice person.
But in early November, Smith hadn’t been feeling well. She hadn’t been drinking but would sleep a lot in her tent set up in a downtown alley behind a pub. It was just after midnight on November 10th when the unthinkable happened.
Dan Samvidge was alerted to unusual sounds in the alley. Dan lived in an apartment that overlooked the alley and his cousin, Darlene, had set her tent up almost below his window.
“I was downstairs and, for some reason, I took the stairs instead of the elevator that night,” he recalled. “I heard the car revving, then it went down the alley fast, hitting a shopping cart.”
From the stairwell window, Samvidge heard the occupants of the car arguing with people from the street community that were sitting together under a tarp. He said he heard a woman’s voice from the car scream that she’s Cape Mudge and her family are going to come back to “get rid of you guys”. Cape Mudge is also known as the We Wai Kai Nation.
According to Samvidge, someone in the passenger seat flung the door open and it struck a woman. He then heard the car rev again as the driver slammed the car in reverse, running over Darlene Smith, who was sleeping inside her tent. The car then hit a pole and bounced back onto the tent, running Smith over a second time.
According to Campbell River RCMP Constable Maury Tyre, police attended to the back alley in the 1300 block of Cedar Street at 12:30 a.m. on Nov. 10 after a call came in that a 53-year-old female was struck by a vehicle while in a tent in the alley.
“The woman was transported to hospital with very serious injuries,” wrote Const. Tyre in an email to Ha-Shilth-Sa. “The driver of the vehicle, a 38-year-old Campbell River woman, was arrested at scene for dangerous driving causing bodily harm.”
“There has been internet rumour that the incident was purposeful, but the investigation does not indicate that the victim was targeted,” added Tyre.
While intoxicants have not been ruled out as a cause, the investigation continues.
Samvidge said there were people in the alley that came to help stop what they saw as an attack on Darlene Smith and the others in the alley. He said there were four people besides Darlene sheltering behind the building, with five or six other people who were sheltering in a neighboring property.
“They jumped the fence to come help,” said Samvidge.
He said there were awful screams and people were slashing tires and smashing windows on the car while he called 911.
Samvidge said he’s been clean and sober for four years, but the trauma of that night was too much.
“I fell off (the wagon) after what I saw and heard…the screams, I can’t get it out of my head,” he said.
Constantly on the move
Why were those people sheltering in the alley?
Const. Tyre said that the City of Campbell River set aside two designated safe locations for the unhoused prior to this incident.
Stefanie Hendrickson is the coordinator for the Campbell River and District Coalition to End Homelessness. She confirms that there are two designated areas for overnight camping within the municipality as per the City of Campbell River bylaw.
“The hours of operation are from 7 p.m. to 8 a.m. So, yes, people must pack up in the mornings,” she told Ha-Shilth-Sa.
And because they are homeless, there is no place to store their belongings, so they must haul them around wherever they go during the day.
Campbell River has nearly 200 people experiencing homelessness, according to a 2023 point-in-time count, and half of those identified as Indigenous. The total number is up 70 percent from the 2021 PiT count.
Hendrickson said that since early November Kwesa Place opened up a temporary seasonal shelter for the third year in a row.
“It has 20 beds available and is open every night until April 30th, 2025,” she told Ha-Shilth-Sa.“This is in addition to the 22 beds at the year-round Evergreen Shelter. The Sobering Assessment Centre also has 16 beds open 24 hours a day. And finally, Homewood, a 40-unit temporary housing site, has just begun welcoming people to their new units there.”
Samantha and Darlene come from a large family.
“We went to Christie Residential School in Tofino, and our parents went to Mission on the mainland,” Samantha told Ha-Shilth-Sa.
Darlene has five children of her own.
“She had six children, she lost her son,” said Samantha of her sister. “She’s been struggling with that. She’s been through a lot in her life. She’s had a really rough life, right from residential school.”
Since Campbell River has tightened up rules around encampments in the city, those experiencing homelessness must be on the move constantly, during the day. If they are not packed up by 8 a.m. they risk losing their belongings.
Darlene says in the past the bylaw officers took her tent and belongings, and she didn’t get them back.
“They take her clothes, her backpack, her blankets, and then she has to start over again,” said Samantha. “They closed off all the safe spaces where they could stay and moved them into the alley. It’s the worst place for them to be, and it’s a lot of people.”
Russell Billy, Darlene’s oldest son, has lived in the homeless encampment in Campbell River. He said they usually set up tents around 5 or 6 p.m., after work hours.
“There’s tents there throughout the night. They take them down at 7,” he said.
Darlene said she used to stay at a shelter called the Rose Bowl, but it closed.
Her brother Eli said that the number of shelter spaces in Campbell River is inadequate for the local needs of the unhoused.
“There’s not enough room,” he said. “Some of them are even going from Campbell River to here [Vancouver]. There’s not enough places for them to go.”
Russell Billy said that the homeless were previously at Spirit Square and Nun’s Creek in the forest, but bylaw officers pushed them out after drugs were discovered.
“From what the homeless people reported to me, they said that they’ve been targeted,” said Samantha. “This isn’t the first incident. There’s been a lot of incidents unreported and uninvestigated by the police.”
“One week before that they were trying to light the tents on fire in the alley,” she added.
With nowhere to go during the day, the homeless say they’ve been pushed to the alleys. And that is why Darlene Smith was sleeping in a tent in that alley on November 10. She was ill and needed a place to rest.
“My cousin Melissa and her son Jasper had just left her sleeping,” Samantha. “She was feeling sick for about a week before this happened. She wasn’t even drinking. She was just sleeping in the tent.”
‘Her will is really strong’
When the ambulance arrived, it took 20 minutes to half an hour for the paramedics to reach Darlene, as the police cleared other tents and things out of the alley, says her relatives. With severe injuries, Darlene was rushed to hospital in Campbell River, then immediately flown to Vancouver General, where she remains. Her injuries include broken front and back ribs, spinal injuries and skull fractures.
“She has rods in her back and pins on her spine to fuse her spinal cord, so she was able to get up and walk,” said Samantha of her sister, who was able to briefly walk on Dec. 3.
By then, Darlene’s condition had improved, although she could barely talk in a whisper.
“She will need mind therapy,” said Samantha. “She is having a hard time remembering the date and why she is in hospital, forgetting she has so much barriers keeping her in here.”
Samantha has been by her sister’s side since the incident, and the family is struggling to find the means to stay in Vancouver as Darlene heals. The sister hopes that Darlene’s condition improves enough for her to be moved to Nanaimo Regional District Hospital, closer to home and family.
“So, the doctors are working towards finding the best place to accommodate her multiple needs. Her body is healing much faster and needs her mind to catch up,” Samantha shared, adding that it is hard to see her sister go through such a difficult recovery.
“She’s really strong, her body is really strong, her will is really strong,” she said.
Dan Samvidge, who witnessed the entire incident, is grateful for the homeless people who were there and stood up to fight for Darlene that night.
“I hope she gets the justice she’s seeking. Darlene wouldn’t want the punishment to be too harsh, as long as that lady knows what they done was wrong,” he said.
Those who stayed around Darlene in the alley have been asking about her condition, as one of their own lies in the aftermath of a nearly fatal incident.
“These people deserve a voice,” said Samantha. “They came from someone. They belong to people.”
