A 30-year-old woman is in hospital with serious injuries after being struck by a tire on the Trans-Canada Highway near Chemainus
The incident happened on a bridge just north of Mount Sicker Road on Wednesday morning, after a truck that was driving by lost two of its rear tires.
One of the tires ended up hitting the 30-year-old woman, who was part of a construction crew that was working on the bridge.
BC Ambulance crews quickly arrived and took the woman to hospital, resulting in the northbound lanes of the highway being blocked for a few hours.
Kirsten Young, who was driving by just after the incident happened, saw the woman lying on the ground and stopped to see if she could help.
“The tire just hit her really hard and knocked her out and then the driver of the truck was focused on the second tire coming off the truck so he didn’t even know that he had hit her and pulled over and realized that there was a woman lying on the ground over there,” recalled Young.
According to Young the woman was able to talk but appeared to be seriously injured. She also says she spoke to the driver of the truck, who told her that he had reported a sound coming from the tires to his employer a few days ago.
“He said ‘I had told the company last week that there’s a sound coming from the back of my truck that needs to be maintained and the company said ‘there’s no time for that, there’s no money for that. You just got to work’ so the driver was pretty mad that this had happened at all,” said Young.
Young says she is thinking of the victim and hopes the injuries aren’t too bad.
“She’s just at work doing her thing and you get hit by a tire that can change your life so I’m really hoping she wasn’t hurt that bad,” she said.
WorkSafeBC along with RCMP and Commercial Vehicle Enforcement and are also investigating the incident.
Kendall Hanson
