A local man rescued two men trapped in a burning semi-trailer that rolled near Sicamous on Dec. 9.
It was around 11:30 p.m. when South Cariboo resident Ted Sawyer was driving the dark stretch of highway east of Sicamous near Enquist Road.
The roads were icy and he was driving westbound about 90 km/h in a 100 km/h speed zone when Sawyer says he noticed vehicle headlights approaching behind him.
When a semi-trailer came up behind him on the slick highway, Sawyer says he watched closely in his rear-view mirror, and then suddenly saw the big truck was in trouble.
“The truck was [sliding] sideways on the road with the tractor pointed across the oncoming lane … and it flipped, and then flipped up in the air again, and then it burst into flames.”
The truck had rolled down an embankment about 25 feet down, he adds, and was engulfed in a “huge fireball.”
Sawyer says he braked and turned around as quickly as possible in the conditions, went back and parked immediately above the crash scene, and left his dog stowed safely in the car.
“I wasn’t worrying about my car too much, but I was worrying about [the truck] maybe blowing, so I kept the car between me and it to have a look, and I saw where the outline of the rig was.
“I was thinking about what I had to do when I got there, and I had winter work gloves in the car, so I thought, well I’ll grab them, because of the hot metal or things like that.
“I was hollering, hoping somebody would reply back, but there was nothing.”
The big bank was steep, and fairly dark despite the nearby flames, but Sawyer jumped over the side and down he went.
“I knew I was going to wipe out going down there, but I knew I had to get down there fast.”
He immediately lost his footing and rolled down to the bottom of the hill like a ball, he explains, landing on fairly flat ground, and then paused to re-orient himself to his surroundings.
The truck driver seemed dazed, and was sitting behind the wheel with a broken arm, Sawyer says, but his door was pinned flat against the ground, while “huge” flames surrounded the passenger door.
The other occupant had been snoozing in the sleeper compartment and also seemed stunned after having been “shaken around like dice,” he adds.
“I started hitting the window with my fists trying to break it, or at least give them the idea to hit the window.”
The occupants were still stunned, Sawyer says, so he looked around for something to break the windshield glass with, but could find nothing.
“Finally, I realized the only way was to do it with my feet, and I lay down on my back right close to it, and I just hammered it – I don’t know how many times, but I had to break it.”
Break it he did, and when he began pulling the glass out of the way, the driver roused and helped to clear an escape route from the cab.
“I had my winter gloves on, so I managed to rip the glass out of there and get them out.
“There was lots of light though,” he adds, chuckling.
He hurried away from the wreckage with the two men, who Sawyer notes were barefoot, back up the bank to his car.
He says by the time they made it back to his vehicle, the wreck began exploding.
“I’m awfully glad that I managed to get them out, because God, that would have been horrible, and absolutely horrifying for them.
“We didn’t have two or three or five minutes when I got them out of there. There were fuel lines and all kinds of things exploding and going wild.”
By this time, other drivers had stopped along the highway at a reasonable distance from the explosion, he explains, and then BC Ambulance arrived soon after and took over from there.
“The one paramedic there, jumping out of the ambulance, she skidded and just about completely wiped out because the road was just slick.”
Sicamous RCMP Const. Dusty Miller was one of the officers who attended the single-vehicle incident at 11:34 p.m.
“The driver of a westbound tractor trailer unit lost control, crossed the centre line, went across the road and into the ditch,” says Miller. “The trailer of the unit flipped and landed on top of the tractor unit and started on fire.”
The officer also confirms a man travelling in front of the truck had apparently stopped and assisted the two occupants from the vehicle before police arrived.
The occupants, who suffered with minor injuries, were transported by ambulance to Shuswap Lake General Hospital in Salmon Arm. The incident is still under investigation.
Sawyer adds the ambulance crew commended him, saying “good job, good job” for getting the truckers out in the nick of time.
It was “just the purest of luck” he was passing at that moment and able to respond quickly enough to prevent a tragedy, he says, adding traffic was light.
The two rescued men were, obviously, very grateful.
“They both said ‘you saved our lives’. And they were appreciative; they said ‘thank you very much’.”
