Last weeks tragedy on Highway 16 west of Polymar was the front page story in Wednesday’s paper, as a number of highway travelers recounted their participation in lending aid and comfort to the survivors of the single car accident last Friday.
While the RCMP have yet to release any details of the incident that night, the Daily news piece serves to provide a bit of a timeline on the accident, from the time the car and its survivors were first found to when the first responders arrived from their separate departure points of Prince Rupert and Terrace.
Questions ranging from looking for improvements to cellular service on that stretch of the highway, to the amount of time needed for responses from emergency officials have been raised in the wake of the tragedy. Friday night’s accident resulted in two young men losing their lives, while two others remain in hospital to recover from their injuries.
HEROIC PASSERS-BY DID ALL THEY COULD AFTER TRAGIC CRASH
By Kris Schumacher
The Daily News
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Pages one and two
As people come to terms with the horrific accident on Highway 16 that claimed the lives of two young men on Friday, we are learning more about some of the heroic passers-by who tried to help out at the accident scene.
Erick Slack and his family were driving from Prince Rupert to Terrace on what he described as a crystal clear night, when they saw one of the accident survivors waving to them from the opposite traffic lane, at what Slack believes was 9:05 p.m.
"I saw him step out in the highway, and right away even though it was dark I could see blood and the reflection of it," said Slack.
"I even recognized him ... and jumped out to help them."
Slack says that both survivors of the accident standing up when they pulled over at the scene. Slack said he asked them to sit down before he assessed their injuries. Slack said one man had a large cut to his head and a damaged arm, and was slightly more coherent and conscious of what was going on than the other.
Slack couldn't call the ambulance from the scene because there was no cell phone service in the area. However, the second person to arrive on the scene was a man who, upon seeing what had happened, drove to where he could get a signal and dialed emergency services.
"We took the initial call at approximately 9:45, and we had two ambulances en route within minutes of that," said Kristy Hillen of B.C. Ambulance Services.
"Because the location couldn't be confirmed, we sent one ambulance from Terrace and one from Prince Rupert, which were dedicated ambulances that were right ready to go."
After trying to calm the men, Slack realized from what they were telling him that there were two other people in the vehicle at the time of the accident, so he left them there while he went to look for the others.
He found the vehicle upside down and 66 yards away from the dirt marks of where the Chevrolet Cavalier went off the road.
After the car left the highway, it is believed from the survivors' accounts that they hit a large rock and flipped several times before coming to a rest off the side of the road on the vehicle's roof.
After walking to the vehicle, Slack found the body of the front-seat passenger just outside the vehicle, but it took him several minutes to locate the driver, whom he estimates was 40 feet or so from the vehicle.
Slack estimates it was then, around 10 minutes after he pulled over, that Lisa and Corey Overton arrived while on their way from Terrace to Prince Rupert.
Lisa Overton described the scene as "surreal," and said even though she had studied as a nurse and worked in a hospital, she was not prepared for what she saw when she arrived.
"I knew I had to stop when I saw (the survivors) on the side of the road, because they were panicking," said Overton. "Instinct from what I learned in school told me to have them lay down on the ground, assess them quickly by checking their breathing and pulse, and have them calm down."
"Lisa and Corey did a lot," said Slack. "Lisa sat there the whole time on the highway keeping pressure on his head and his other cuts, talking to him. Cory came down with me to guard the bodies and make some noise for over an hour while we waited, because bears will smell the blood and maybe drag the bodies [away]."
It was several minutes later that UNBC student Jessie King and her boyfriend Matthew Otway pulled up to the scene after driving all the way from Prince George, miraculously with a first aid kit in their car.
"Speaking to the others, they said that with the state of the other boys in the ditch, there was no point in doing any kind of life saving on them, so we stayed with the boys we could treat," said King, who is a trained lifeguard.
King also described the scene as surreal, and is still somewhat in shock herself.
"We were pretty much sitting there for an hour, hour and a half, telling those boys that someone was with their friends, trying our hardest not to tell them that they were deceased to keep them from going further into shock," said King.
There happened to be as ambulance transferring a patient from Terrace to Prince Rupert which arrived on the scene several minutes before the two dispatched ambulances, and those paramedics stopped and assisted until the other two arrived.
"I'm not sure at the exact amount of time it took the ambulances to get to the scene, we know it was 70 kilometres West of Terrace," said Hillen. "From what I understand it was poor visibility and raining, and although our ambulances were dispatched on Code 3, which is lights and sirens, obviously we want to get there safely so we can take away the patients. So I'm not sure how long it took for those two to get to the scene."
Slack claims that he didn't encounter any rain or fog on his drive from Prince Rupert to the accident scene, and similarly Overton said the driving conditions were perfectly clear on her way from Terrace to the scene of the crash.
"It took an hour and 40 minutes from the time I first arrived for any response to come, which is absolutely uncalled for," said Slack. "I got there at 9:05, and nothing was there until about 10:45. The whole thing raises the question, 'When are we going to get a cellular system between there?'"
"We waited for over an hour, asking everyone that came by if they had a CB radio or satellite phone or anything," said Overton.
Eric Slack received a phone call from one of the survivors yesterday to let him know he was headed to Vancouver to undergo surgery on his arm. It is believed that Basil was scheduled to undergo surgery for his facial injuries yesterday as well.
The names of the two deceased have not been released by RCMP. RCMP members were unavailable for comment yesterday.
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