A young child was seriously injured after a head-on crash involving a suspected drunk driver in North Delta last week.
According to Delta police, a westbound vehicle containing a family of three and an eastbound vehicle with a lone male driver collided head-on just before 10 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 14 in the 10100-block of River Road.
Police arrested the man, who appeared to have received only minor injuries, for suspected impaired driving, while the child in the other vehicle was transported to hospital with serious injuries. The two other occupants of the westbound vehicle also received minor injuries.
The investigation is ongoing and police are pursuing criminal impaired driving charges in this incident.
“Our officers work very hard to take impaired drivers off the road any time of the day or night, and we take that job very seriously,” Insp. Ciaran Feenan, head of the Delta Police Department’s patrol section, said in a press release.
“Incidents like this are why we are so proactive on Delta streets. Every one of our patrol and traffic officers has equipment to test for drunk driving. We share the results of our enforcement with the community on a regular basis.”
The day before the crash, the DPD posted on social media that police had taken nine drunk drivers off the road over the weekend, and an additional six impaired drivers earlier in the week.
In a subsequent post on Monday, Jan 20, the DPD said officers over the weekend had administered two 90-day prohibitions and two three-day prohibitions as a result of “warns” (where the driver’s blood alcohol count is between 0.05 – 0.08).
“This needs to stop,” Feenan said. “It’s absolutely unacceptable that a young child has received significant injuries. People who make the choice to drive impaired are being incredibly selfish. This incident has renewed our officers’ determination to make sure we take as many impaired drivers off the road as we can.”
Feenan also thanked the people at the scene of the crash who called for assistance and did what they could to help those involved.
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