WATCH: A fatal crash closed Highway 19A Sunday afternoon. B.C. Hydro crews worked to make the scene safe for emergency crews to extricate one person. An elderly man was pronounced dead at the scene. Dean Stoltz reports.
The crash happened around 1:30 Sunday afternoon on Highway 19A, just north of Endall Road in Black Creek.
Two vehicles were involved and one person was pronounced dead at the scene.
“One of our officers was first on the scene and he came to a two car MVA, ” said Oyster River Fire Chief Bruce Green. “One person was out of the vehicle and there was another person still trapped in the vehicle.”
The trapped victim was an elderly man in his 80’s.
He was found unresponsive and without a pulse, but firefighters could not extricate him because the vehicles had hit and damaged a hydro pole.
“The pole is basically sheared right off and it?s just hanging there loosely and if that pole came down with us in the car especially with the transformer above it?s too dangerous for first responders to be in there,” said Green.
RCMP investigators believe both vehicles were heading in a northbound direction.
“It may have been that the car was on the shoulder and then made a U-turn in front of the pick up, and the pick up truck at that time impacted the driver side of the car and both of them carried on into the ditch and into the pole,” said RCMP North Island Traffic Services Constable Dave Dormuth.
The driver of the pickup truck was taken to hospital with minor injuries and released.
The road will open to single lane alternating traffic at 7:30 p.m.
Dean Stoltz
