Ottawa Lawyer, David Hollingsworth, Ottawa Injury Lawyer.  I am always so amazed at how Ottawa comes together as a community and supports each other.  Thank you Ottawa !

OTTAWA — Among the casualties of this summer’s rash of collisions between cars and cyclists was the promising future of a young Sudanese refugee who had begun to rise above his difficult past in a troubled country.

But in his death, the roots he helped his family establish in Ottawa took hold, as the community rallied around his grief-stricken brothers.

“My heart is full of happiness,” said John Ochang Luka, whose younger brother, Charles, was struck by a car on Ogilvie Road in July.

“That support I had during that time up to today, I’m very happy. Friends, the Sudanese community in general, and the teachers of Charles and the teachers of my children — all of this made a lot of difference to me.”

Charles Taban Luka, 22, was cycling along Ogilvie Road on July 21, when he drifted out of the bike lane and into the path of cars travelling in the same direction.

Just before 11 p.m., he was hit by a Volkswagen Jetta and sustained critical head injuries. Police say he wasn’t wearing a helmet and may have been drinking.

He was kept on life support at the trauma centre of The Ottawa Hospital’s Civic campus for two days before he died.

He left behind his three brothers, who all arrived in Ottawa together from Sudan nearly four years ago.

“They’ve come so far, they just start thinking they’re getting ahead and they get hit with this,” said Nicole Hicks, who taught Charles’s niece and nephew at a Beacon Hill North Catholic school.

“They’ve been through so much already, and to be making it on their own and trying to learn English. And Charles would do so much for that family. It’s just an enormous loss for them, they had such a close-knit little family.”

John Ochang Luka, 35, was a refugee in Kenya when he received a scholarship to study in Canada. But he refused to leave without his three younger brothers, and later arrived in Ottawa in November 2004 with them and his wife and two children.

Had he arrived in Canada with just his wife and children, he probably would have had an easier time, financially speaking, said family friend Nathalie Maione.

The elder Luka immediately began working to support his extended family and put his brothers through school, Maione said.

Charles was halfway through a four-year program in bio-technology at Algonquin College, Luka said.

He worked for a biotech company and took on a second job at Tim Hortons, eager to repay the favour to his older brother and contribute money to the family’s coffers, Maione said. He also sent money back to his parents in Sudan.

Four years after arriving in an unfamiliar land, he was well on his way to building a life in Ottawa.

“He was part of the choir at his church, he was very involved,” Maione said. “They used him as an example for the youth, a very upstanding young man.”

 When Charles died, the people he had come to know felt compelled to help his grieving family.

“The community really came together, because they wouldn’t have even been able to afford the funeral,” Maione said.

Money was also raised to send Charles’s body back to Sudan for burial, which was a great comfort to his mother, Luka said.

Shortly after the tragedy, John’s car, which the family relied on heavily, gave out. “Without a vehicle, the family would have to pull the three children out of the school and sever many of the roots they had worked so hard to establish,” Hicks said. 

She went to work finding the family another vehicle. She spoke with Luc Bélanger, general manager of Marcel Belanger Pontiac Buick GMC, about the family’s plight.

“My idea was for them just to defer the payment or something so we could fundraise at school. When I asked them how much the van was, they said: ‘Free of charge.’”

 Still mourning Charles, the family is now faced with the stress of trying to find a new place to live that will accommodate Luka’s wife and children and his two younger brothers, who live in an apartment nearby. But the help they’ve received since July has meant a lot to them.

 “This minivan and other things, this is a lot,” Luka said. “This is a lot.