The husband of a woman and mother of two young daughters who was killed in Toronto’s east-end this summer is opening up about the grief that he lives with and the circumstances that led up to the tragedy.
Caroline Huebner-Makurat, 44, was on her way to lunch on July 7 when she was hit by a stray bullet near the intersection of Queen Street East and Carlaw Avenue following a daytime shooting involving two male suspects. She was rushed to hospital but was later pronounced dead.
Her husband, Adrian Makurat, spoke exclusively with CTV News Toronto last week about the shooting and how he will ultimately remember his wife of nine years.
The emotional interview was done in the Haliburton area ahead of Wilderness Traverse, a gruelling 24-hour adventure team race through Ontario’s backcountry on foot, by bike and canoe that Makurat was participating in.
“You never know when you may not be able to speak to someone again, and I know what the last few words that I said to Caroline were. It was something special and I’ll forever remember that,” Makurat said.
“Now it’s about what she won’t see. What she won’t be able to accomplish, where she won’t be able to go, what she won’t be able to feel.”
Makurat attributes the way he has managed since Caroline’s death to his experience facing physical and mental adversity, with Polish Scouts and through 20 years of adventure racing.
He said that in past years Caroline followed the wilderness race from home as GPS trackers allow spectators to connect to a website and see how participants are doing. This year his team finished eight overall in the race.
“I look at it as breaking it down into these micro sections, 100 metres, 200 metres. You do what you can in that little section and you replicate it, and if you do that over and over again, you achieve that goal of getting through that stage, and that’s how I relate to my day-to-day life right now,” he said…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..