By Ashley Legassic

Suspected impaired driver went on wild ride before Westsyde Road crash: search warrant

Mar 25, 2019 | 1:28 PM

KAMLOOPS — An allegedly impaired Kamloops driver had crashed into an embankment, drove on a sidewalk, and sped off into oncoming traffic before a serious crash in Westsyde last month.

That’s according to an unsealed search warrant filed by Kamloops RCMP officer Const. Sukhdeep Toor earlier this month.

Police said early in the investigation they had suspected impaired driving in the crash, that critically injured one person. Toor’s application for a search warrant sheds more light on what led up to the crash, and what happened afterward.

Around 7:40 p.m. on Feb. 24, police received a report from an eye witness, that said a red four-door vehicle was being operated by a possibly impaired driver, heading westbound on Westsyde Road past McQueen Drive.

According to the search warrant, the witness said the vehicle spun out and drove across into the oncoming lane, hit the embankment and meridian before it backed up and took off speeding westbound.

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Just four minutes later, the same witness reported the vehicle, identified as a Toyota Corolla, was involved in a head-on collision with a Hyundai Elantra on Westsyde Road and Anderson Terrace.

According to the search warrant, the driver had initially jumped the Corolla over a snowbank sending it into the air, drove along a sidewalk and lost control before hitting a light pole. The driver took off again before crashing into the Elantra.

When Toor arrived, he saw that the Corolla was in the slow westbound lane, facing eastbound. The front of the vehicle was completely demolished, and there was debris across all four lanes of traffic.

The driver was the sole occupant of the Corolla and he was trapped inside. CFJC Today has chosen not to identify the driver until and if charges are laid against him.

Multiple Kamloops Fire Rescue members were trying to extract the driver out of the Corolla, according to the search warrant.

Toor was advised that the Corolla came into oncoming traffic and crashed into the Elantra, which sent it down an embankment on the frontage road south of Westsyde Road.

A different officer went to Royal Inland Hospital with Alexander and Nicole Little — the occupants of the Elantra. The officer told Toor that Alexander wasn’t doing well.

“KFR had to use tools to remove the crumpled driver side door, rear driver side door and then move the dashboard inside to get (the driver) out of the Corolla,” the search warrant states.

Crew members were sitting in the passenger seat trying to free the driver while a paramedic attempted to get him out of the vehicle.

The paramedic told Toor the Corolla driver’s eyes were glossy because “he’s drunk” and Toor questioned if the paramedic believed the driver to be impaired by alcohol. He nodded his head yes.

According to the search warrant, the driver was placed on a gurney and taken into an ambulance. Toor got into the ambulance with him, and had to ask multiple times to get the driver’s name and information.

Toor said the driver slurred his speech to a paramedic, asking, “What you doing?” and stating, “I’m a good person.”

Toor was at RIH as the driver was being treated, but because the driver was unresponsive, Toor couldn’t read the man his rights or take a blood sample. The search warrant states that police later went back to the hospital with a different search warrant for the driver’s blood samples.

Several other witnesses gave statements to the police regarding the Corolla’s movements leading up to the crash.

In the search warrant, police sought to retrieve crash data from the airbag system in the Corolla which would provide data and evidence.

The investigation is currently focused on impaired driving causing bodily harm, but charges have not been laid at this point.