A driver was rushed to hospital by helicopter Tuesday morning after Oyster River firefighters rescued him from a smashed car on Hamm Road near Highway 19A.
The driver of a two-door sedan told firefighters that he struck a deer moments before crashing over a driveway and off the road, said deputy fire chief Chris Murray.
“It looked like he hit one side of the driveway, basically flipped his vehicle to the other side of the driveway, and down into an embankment,” Murray said.
Firefighters got the emergency call around 5:35 a.m. They found the man trapped in his car, and they used the jaws of life to pry open the door.
The lone male occupant was injured but able to speak.
He said he’d struck a deer, which was apparently crossing the road when the incident occurred, Murray said. A dead deer was found nearby on Hamm Road.
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The man appears to have suffered head and spine trauma, and was having problems with his right arm.
Murray said the car travelled perhaps 20 or 25 feet away from the road and down an eight-foot embankment, near the intersection with Macaulay Road.
There were about a dozen firefighters on the scene, along with paramedics and police.
Once the driver had been extricated from the car, an ambulance took him to Miracle Beach Mini Golf, located a short distance away on the North Island Highway, where a chopper landed and flew the man to hospital.
BC Emergency Health Services responded to an emergency call involving a single-vehicle accident near Oyster River at 5:46 a.m. on Tuesday, said BCEHS spokesperson Shannon Miller.
A ground unit was dispatched and arrived shortly after 6 a.m., and an air ambulance helicopter was also auto-launched by dispatch, she said, referring to a rapid response procedure used in acute care emergencies.
At 6:39 a.m., the chopper transported the patient, who was in critical condition, to a hospital in the Vancouver area.
Comox Valley RCMP hadn’t responded to an inquiry about the incident by Tuesday afternoon.
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