An investigation into a single-vehicle collision resulted in the discovery of an explosive device in East Sooke Friday morning and sent a security guard to hospital.
Sooke RCMP officers were initially called to the intersection of Yates Road and East Sooke Road after the crash was reported just after 4 a.m. When police arrived, they found one injured woman who was believed to be an occupant of the crashed vehicle.
Officers then learned the driver had fled before police arrived. The woman was arrested based on evidence obtained at the scene.
Shortly after, police received a report that a security guard had their truck stolen nearby. Officers then found that the truck had crashed down an embankment.
The driver of the stolen vehicle is also believed to be the driver of the vehicle in the first crash. He was arrested and taken into custody for offences including theft of a vehicle and assault with a weapon.
At the first collision scene, Sooke RCMP officers learned there was an explosive device present that was associated with the woman.
RCMP brought in the Explosive Disposal Unit to safely remove the explosive.
‘The gun went off’
The security guard, who works for the Sc’ianew First Nation, spoke with CHEK News on the condition of anonymity. She says she was called to attend the crash scene until police arrived.
“I checked in and the female passenger had made it out of the vehicle and had told my security team that she was a hostage against her will,” said the security guard in a phone interview.
She soon drove around and found him trying to break into another resident’s home, and there was an altercation that he fled from.
“I confronted him and asked him if he was the driver of the vehicle that just was in an accident, and he said to me that he was not and that he had been dropped off by a friend. Once I saw that the members did not want to allow him into their home, I directed him that he needed to leave the community,” the security supervisor said.
It was then that the driver tried to take her truck.
“He demanded my vehicle. At first, I was like, ‘I’m not giving you my truck,’ was like, get bent in not so polite terms, and then that’s when he pulled out the gun,” she said.
“He hit me with the butt of the gun two times in the face and punched me once and while I was trying to fight him off and get my seatbelt off to vacate the vehicle the gun went off, and I heard glass smash on the passenger side of my vehicle.”
She says she got out of the vehicle, covered in blood. Her son, who was with her, helped her out and called 911.
She was brought to the hospital, where she got some stitches and a CT scan. She says she has a fracture on her face and she will have to see a plastic surgeon.
“I’m feeling like I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but also feeling like had I not been there something worse could have happened to the female passenger from the first accident,” she said.
“So I’m grateful that I was able to intervene there but upset that I received the injuries that I did.”
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Emergency vehicles were on scene on East Sooke Road clearing a multi-vehicle incident.
Both vehicles were towed and seized, and both the man and woman remain in custody.
RCMP would not confirm details of the security guard’s assault. It’s unclear what charges the woman involved is facing.
Anyone with information on the incident is asked to contact the Sooke RCMP at 250-642-5141.
DriveBC first shared that East Sooke Road between Rocky Point and Sutiacum roads was closed shortly after 4 a.m. The road reopened at 10:24 a.m.
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A police vehicle is shown at the first crash scene.
Laura Brougham
