At least two people were taken to hospital following a multi-vehicle crash on the Inland Island Highway near Trent River, Saturday around 1:30 p.m. Police, fire and ambulance attended the wreckage, which closed the northbound lane for upwards of an hour, causing a long lineup down the highway.
“What I saw out there was one car was just thrashed, another car that wasn’t so bad, and then there was a truck with two people trapped, and they were pulling a huge fifth wheeler,” Cumberland Fire Chief Mike Williamson said. “The truck and the fifth wheel were the serious incident.”
Williamson and other emergency personnel performed a double extraction.
“They looked pretty seriously injured,” he said. “One guy, his head was trapped. You got to be a little careful with a head trap. Took a little longer to get him out. But he was talking and communicating with us, the lady was not, so we took her out first. But she was breathing the last time I saw her.”
Williamson said the Dodge Ram was demolished.
“The wheels were knocked right off it, the skylight roof was like 60 feet in the bush.”
The other car, a red Mustang, came to a rest on the grass between the north- and southbound lanes.
“I came across it. I see this one (Mustang) smoking,” said a motorist who helped out at the scene. “I grabbed my fire extinguisher, just give it a shot, and then run across the road. I ask, ‘Is anybody trapped in there?’, and they go, ‘Yeah,’ because other people were backing off. So I get in there and help ’em out.”
It was raining heavily around the time of the collision.
“It was a real downpour at the time,” Williamson said.
