Midway’s fire chief says the first dump of snow produced four separate crashes on Highway 3 between Midway and Greenwood over the last few days.
In one of the most serious of those incidents, about Mike Daloise says they were called Friday morning to a report of a pick-up truck about 200 feet (60 metres) down a steep embankment about seven kilometers east of Midway.
Fortunately, the water level is low right now and an initial report that the truck was on its roof turned out to be incorrect. It actually landed on its wheels.
Emergency responders, who also included firefighters from Greenwood, RCMP, and paramedics, accessed the creek via a road through a ranch, which got them to within 50 or 60 feet (15 to 18 meters) of the truck. They used the Jaws of Life to pry the door off and get the driver out, who remained conscious the whole time.
The patient was loaded onto a spine board, taken out of the creek to a basket and then hauled up the bank with a rope system to a waiting ambulance.
“All agencies worked extremely well together to be able to access and remove this patient,” Daloise said.
RCMP are investigating the cause, but Daloise said wintery road conditions were a likely factor, as they were in three other crashes in the same general area.
One single-vehicle incident also required the use of ropes to pull a patient up a bank. Daloise said they had “relatively serious” injuries and were taken to hospital by ambulance.
“With the onset of winter driving conditions, people haven’t adjusted as quickly as they needed to,” he said.