Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Dylana Kneeshaw / Ashley Legassic

COQUIHALLA CRASH

One dead after serious crash on Coquihalla Highway

Dec 4, 2019 | 3:50 PM

MERRITT, B.C. — RCMP are warning drivers to take extra care on Interior highways, after a fatal vehicle incident along the Coquihalla this morning.

E-Division Traffic Services spokesperson Cpl. Mike Halskov says just after 6:30 this morning (Dec. 4), RCMP and emergency services were responding to multiple calls of treacherous road conditions on the northbound side of the Coquihalla Highway, around the Larson Hill / Coldwater area.

“Upon attendance to a collision that had occurred up there, they (responders) found that the highway essentially closed itself,” he says. “That’s how it was described to me, because it was just absolutely treacherously icy.”

Halskov says with the volumes of cars and trucks that had been on the road, they had come to a stop and all the lanes had been blocked.

A vehicle headed northbound with three people inside came upon the scene and wasn’t able to stop in time.

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“(The car) basically slid into the back of a stopped transport trucking — killing the driver (of the car) and sending his two passengers to the hospital with unknown injuries at the time, but (they are) expected to be survivable.”

Halskov says the driver who died was a young man in his 20s from the Lower Mainland.

Given how deadly the roads can get in the wintertime, RCMP are reminding people to stay alert, and to drive to conditions.

“Especially as you’re travelling from the Lower Mainland to the Interior, and navigating some of our mountain passes, it can change in a heartbeat so drivers need to be very wary.”

Several other crashes were reported on the highway this morning.