A Squamish man has entered guilty pleas in relation to a September 2022 collision that killed one woman and injured another at a local bus stop, according to court documents.
On September 2, 2022, a pickup truck left the roadway and struck two women waiting on a wooden bench at a Squamish bus stop, before fleeing the scene. One of the women, 44-year-old Gurpreet Sangha, died after being transported to hospital, while the second woman, Kuljeet Saran, sustained life-altering injuries.
The driver, identified as John Cernos, was arrested in November 2023 and initially faced multiple charges including impaired driving causing bodily harm, impaired driving causing death, dangerous driving, dangerous driving causing death, failure to remain at the scene of a collision, and failure to remain at the scene of a collision causing death.
On January 23, 2025, Cernos appeared in court and entered guilty pleas to three charges: impaired driving causing bodily harm, impaired driving causing death, and failing to remain at the scene of a collision.
Leading Up to the Incident
According to an agreed statement of facts in the case, Cernos and his fiancee were celebrating their daughter’s second birthday that evening and Cernos had begun drinking around 4 p.m.
At about 11 p.m., the accused asked his fiancee for the keys to her jeep to go to the casino with a friend.
The fiancée refused and recommended they instead take the free casino shuttle. “Witnesses described the conversation becoming ‘heated,’ describing the screaming of profanities,” the judge wrote in the summary of the case.
While the fiancée called a taxi and then called the casino to arrange for a ride, witnesses told the court they heard a truck “speed out” from the residence, “emitting black smoke” as it left the home.
The truck sped through a four-way stop into downtown Squamish with the headlights off, the court heard.
Witnesses rushed to help
Court documents and described a chaotic scene moments after the crash. The impact destroyed part of the bus shelter and trapped Sangha beneath the truck, while Saran was found about a hundred yards away from the truck. Several bystanders ran to the scene to help the victims.
The driver fled the scene on foot before police arrived. According to court documents, Cernos returned home to his fiancée. When the police showed up at the residence minutes later, his fiancée told them he was not home.
“Mr. Cernos does not remember the incident” due to his intoxication, according to the judge, who wrote that when Cernos was eventually detained during the crash investigation, he “believed the police arrested the wrong person.”
A forensic analysis of the vehicle found no mechanical or environmental factors contributed to the collision.
“A forensic collision reconstruction expert concluded that the truck was travelling too fast to safely navigate the turn and that if the truck had been travelling at a slower speed around the turn, the loss of control and the collision would not have occurred,” the judge wrote.
Bystanders lifted the overturned truck off of Sangha, who was pinned under the rear axel, and the two women were rushed to Squamish General Hospital by ambulance, and later transferred to Vancouver General Hospital for more advanced care.
Cernos Charged 14 Months Later
While Cernos was initially detained on September 3, 2022, and taken to the Squamish RCMP detachment. According to the judge, Cernos appeared “agitated and unco-operative,” and denied being the driver of the truck.
He was released later that afternoon and remained uncharged and at large till November 2023, when he was again arrested and released on a police undertaking as the investigation moved forward.
In January of this year, Cernos plead guilty to six charges, namely one count each of impaired driving causing bodily harm, impaired driving causing death, dangerous driving, dangerous driving causing death, failure to remain at the scene of a collision, and failure to remain at the scene of a collision causing death.
According to court documents, the offender quit drinking after the fatal accident and has remained in Squamish “so as to not run away from what he did, hoping to show the community that he is trying to better himself and learn from what he has done.”
Court Hearing and Sentencing
According to the judge, the maximum penalty for a conviction of impaired driving causing death is life in prison. “Were it not for the mitigating factors of the offender’s guilty plea and expressions of remorse, the judge would have preferred a sentence of six and a half years in prison,” he wrote.
While the Crown prosecutor sought a combined prison sentence of eight years for the charges, Cernos’s defence lawyer asked for three years in prison and a $4,000 fine.
“I am reducing the sentence for impaired driving causing death to 48 months, and for leaving the scene of an accident causing death to six months consecutive,” the judge wrote. “The total sentence will be 54 months, or four and a half years.”
Cernos is also prohibited from driving for seven years by order of the court.
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