After two crashes on Silver Skagit Road near Hope last week, the RCMP is urging drivers to slow their speed and drive with care on rural gravel roads.
“We caution everyone to take your time when you’re on those roads. Be cognizant of your speed,” said Cpl. Mike Rail, spokesperson for the RCMP’s Upper Fraser Valley Regional Detachment.
“They are gravel roads and you just have to be careful of your speed and remain alert.”
The crash last Wednesday around 9 p.m. involved two people. One was airlifted to hospital and the other suffered non-life-threatening injuries when their Toyota SUV went off the road 12 kilometres north of Hope.
BC Ambulance and Hope Search and Rescue were on the scene. The Hope Fire Department also worked to set up a landing zone at the Hope Airpark for the incoming airlift. The cause of the crash is still being investigated.
The second crash happened around 11 a.m. Sunday, five kilometres up Silver Skagit Road.
Three people were travelling in a Nissan Pathfinder, which went down an embankment and landed upside down in the Silver Hope Creek with all three trapped in the vehicle.
Several drivers stopped to help the submerged vehicle. By the time Mission resident Don Neste arrived, the driver was clambering on top of the overturned vehicle trying to get two female passengers out —one was unconscious and the other suffered a broken arm.
Neste said he lost both of his shoes to the icy rushing water, which was at times up to his neck.
The BC Emergency Health Services arrived on scene to tend to the passengers who had been rescued by the bystanders, which included Neste and the driver and another man. The RCMP and Hope Search and Rescue attended shortly after.
All three people involved sustained non-life-threatening injuries.
Rail said neither speed, alcohol or drugs were factors in Sunday’s crash.
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