“It’s one of those days I shouldn’t have gotten out of bed,” said Duane Ervin.
Ervin is one of the owner/operators of Omineca Redi-mix, and he was on his way to deliver a load of concrete to Sowchea Elementary when he said a series of unfortunate incidents led to his truck laying in the ditch, with the load hardened in the drum.
At 9:30 a.m. on July 13, Ervin, was delivering a full load of wet cement, and realized as he was driving the drum might not have been emptied fully the night before, so he might have spillage issues.
In order to avoid any spillage on the hill, Ervin was backing up Sowchea Road from Highway 27, trying to keep to the side to avoid slowing traffic, when the soft shoulder of the road gave way and the truck became stuck.
With a heavy load, the truck was being pulled off the shoulder and back onto the road by two loaders using cables when the bumper one cable was attached to snapped, and the entire truck rolled sideways into the ditch.
Duane Ervin was in the driver’s seat as the incident unfolded, but emerged with only a scraped hand, so there were no serious injuries resulting from the incident.
The truck was cleared later the same day, but the drum was left, and would have to be removed later.
Constable Kehler, of the RCMP was investigating the incident said no charges would be laid and he was passing the file on to ICBC. Kehler said his main concern was for public safety during the incident.
“It could have been a lot worse,” he said.
