A 44-year-old Keremeos woman died after her car lost control on Highway 3 nine kilometres east of Princeton around 7:30 a.m. Feb. 11.
Three other people in the car survived, but were taken to hospital with moderate to severe non-life threatening injuries.
The car fell down an embankment and flipped upside down in the Similkameen River after it skidded off the highway while travelling eastbound.
Three passengers escaped the car but the driver was stuck inside.
An RCMP officer spotted an injured woman on the side of the road. When he stopped, he noticed the upside down car and a woman on the icy bank holding another woman so she wouldn’t be washed away by the current.
The RCMP officer and a highway maintenance worker pulled the woman from the water.
They both jumped into the water and tried to free the driver, who was submerged in the water.
The men weren’t able to free her, and the woman drowned. They then used chains and the maintenance worker’s truck to roll the vehicle.
The other three women who were in the car were taken by ambulance to Penticton Regional Hospital. They were all related.
