“I am very blessed to be alive,” Chad Willox wrote to his Facebook page following his involvement in a six-vehicle collision on Highway 1 near Sicamous.
The comment was posted on Sunday, July 19 by the Golden resident, along with an excerpt of dashcam video taken by the driver following Willox during the collision that occurred 10 kilometres west of Sicamous on the evening of Wednesday, July 15.
The harrowing footage shows a westbound white tractor-trailer unit coming around a corner, crossing double solid lines before falling on its side in the eastbound lane. In the process, the semi collides with the side of Willox’s pickup truck and trailer before hitting the vehicle with the dashcam filming the incident.
“Time to make changes to Commercial Vehicle Regulations and Training. A twinned national highway would seem appropriate as well,” commented Willox in the post.
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Two semis, three pickup trucks and an SUV were involved in the collision that sent the driver of the westbound semi and three other people to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
The driver of the westbound semi, a 32-year-old Calgary man, was charged by police for crossing double solid lines. Speed was believed to have been a contributing factor.
“This narrow two lane section of the highway has a rock wall on the eastbound ditch and a steep drop behind the concrete barrier on the western ditch,” commented Sicamous RCMP Sgt. Murray McNeil. “It is extremely fortunate that this collision did not result in multiple fatalities considering the length the truck traveled before finally coming to a stop, and the extent of the damage sustained to all the impacted vehicles.”
Witnesses of the collision were asked to contact the Sicamous RCMP at 250-836-2878.
