durhamregion.com | This Week | Thursday, December 22, 2022 | 16 LEADERS IN PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT What stories interested our Durham Region readers in 2022? Generally, our most popular stories are crime or emergency related, such as murders, big fires or people in trouble. That applies to our top story of the year -- the closure of the westbound lanes of Hwy. 401 after a woman fell off the Simcoe Street bridge in Oshawa. The incident happened on Monday, Nov. 7 at about 4:20 p.m. Westbound vehicles were diverted off the highway at Harmony Road, while the eastbound lanes moved at a crawl. Here are the other nine stories in our top-10 list of the most read stories of the year. The second most popular story was a sign a Whitby resident put up on their house telling people to "GO F*** Yourself'. Reka Szekely wrote the story on Monday, April 25, noting Whitby bylaw staff went to the home and told the resident the sign would have to be removed. In third place was the story of an Ajax woman reaching out to the police reporting that someone had gotten into her house. Problem was the woman, using the online Live Chat program, reached the Durham Constabulary (DC) in Durham in the United Kingdom. DC staff contacted the Durham police, who went to the house in the Audley and Taunton roads area of Ajax and were able to catch the suspect. The woman received medical attention for her injuries. Insp. Andrea Arthur, head of the DC control room, said, "This was an unusual incident and a very distressing situation for the victim, but the team remained calm and managed to help our Canadian colleagues resolve the situation quickly and professionally." The closure of the Walmart outlet at King Street and Townline Road in Oshawa came in fourth. Customers really like their Walmart stores apparently. The story, written by Jillian Follert on Tuesday, March 1, noted, "All associates at this store are being offered positions at nearby stores," the company says in a statement. In fifth place was the unfortunate story of a 23-year-old forestry worker who was killed in a wood chipper while working in Oshawa. The victim was Dan Vanheyst of Verona, Ontario. It happened on Wednesday, March 16 in the Waverly Street and Adelaide Avenue area. The story noted, "Paramedics were treating his co-workers, who were in shock." The sales of a home in Whitby came in sixth. Why? In March of this year, the real estate market was on fire, with houses selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars over the asking price. The Whitby home, at 329 Whitby Shores Greenway was listed at $1.3 million, but sold six days later for $2.33 million. Yan Gurevich of Toronto was the agent selling the property and he said of the sale, "It's lightning in a bottle, once-in-a-blue-moon." Speaking of creating buzz, the seventh-place story is one that usually does that. The Wednesday, March 16 story was about an Oshawa vice-principal who was charged with luring. The suspect, Joel Banbury, 44, had been a teacher at several schools in Durham prior to being appointed the acting vice-principal at Coronation Public School at the time of his arrest. He had also coached girls' teams at a Durham volleyball club. The alleged incident happened in 2016 and investigators with the Durham Regional Police started an investigation in February. A good old-fashioned election story was number eight, with a recap of who won in which municipality during the October municipal elections. Given the last two plus years, what would a top list of stories be without a COVID-19 related story. On Tuesday, April 5, the story was about the number of COVID cases in the region. Finally, the 10th story was another real estate-related story and it was about where homebuyers were overbidding on houses in the region. There were five neighbourhoods -- Samac in Oshawa, Lakeside and Westney Heights in Ajax, Lynde Creek in Whitby and Liverpool in Pickering. WHAT WERE DURHAM REGION RESIDENTS READING IN 2022? A Whitby home located at 329 Whitby Shores Greenway sold for $1 million over asking in early March 2022. Yan Gurevich photo NEWS