100 vehicles crash in blizzard near Edmonton
Posted March 21, 2013 5:06 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A spring blizzard that has been blasting through the Prairies is being blamed for a chaotic series of crashes south of Edmonton involving at least 100 vehicles.
About 22 people went to area hospitals, including one adult with serious injuries.
Kerry Williamson, with Alberta Health Services, said Thursday that about 80 others were treated at the site. At first it was believed that even more people were hurt.
“The initial call came in that we had in 300 green patients, which are sort of minor to moderate injuries.”
Paramedics, EMS crews and firefighters trudged through the snow, going from vehicle to vehicle, to check on those inside, Williamson said.
They commandeered three Greyhound buses on the highway and used them as triage centres, he said. Police also escorted four Edmonton transit buses to the scene to provide shelter to motorists who were stranded.
“It’s obviously a mess out there.”
STARS air ambulance had to turn down requests to ferry patients because of the bad weather, said spokesman Cam Heke. The helicopters simply couldn’t get in the air.
RCMP closed a 60-kilometre stretch of Highway 2 — the main road between Edmonton and Calgary — and were redirecting traffic away from the scene.
Const. Karolina Malik said the first crash happened just before lunch.
“And from that collision we ended up getting a chain reaction, so multiple other collisions occurred from there, due to the poor visibility and the icy roads.”
The crashes involved a large passenger bus and several semi-trucks.
A bus passenger tweeted a photo of the mayhem, calling it a massive pileup, but adding that everyone on the bus was all right.
“Hitchhiking my way to Edmonton via Wetaskiwin on country roads,” Derek Fildebrandt wrote in another tweet. “Found a Tim Hortons. There is a God.”
Mounties in Saskatchewan also issued travel warnings and closed highways due to heavy snow, winds and icy conditions.
Snowfall warnings were in effect with as much as 15 centimetres expected in some areas.
Police said numerous motorists were stranded on Highway 17 north of Lloydminster on the Alberta-Saskatchewan boundary.
Traffic in both directions was at a standstill because of a snowdrift 100 metres long and more than half a metre deep.
Highway crews were attempting to remove the drift, but it’s expected that blowing snow would just drift over the road again.
