An 86-year-old woman from Calgary died Aug. 24 when the mini-van she was a passenger in was hit head-on by a semi truck on Highway 1 west of Scott Lake Hill, according to Cochrane RCMP Sergeant Jeff Campbell. The collision took place at approximately 1:30 p.m.
“A westbound semi on Highway 1 coming down the hill from Scott Lake Hill coming close to Bearhill Road, for unknown reasons, left the roadway into the centre meridian, came up and entered the eastbound lane,” he said. “Reports have it that the semi was slightly airborne. It then impacted an eastbound mini-van.”
Campbell said STARS Air Ambulance was called to the scene and airlifted the victim to Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary with severe life-threatening injuries.
“Unfortunately, she succumbed to her injuries as a result (of the collision),” he said. “The 48-year-old female driver of the mini-van, also from Calgary, had minor injuries.”
A 14-year-old boy and an 11-year-old girl in the back of the mini-van suffered serious injuries and were transported to the Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary by ground ambulance, according to Campbell, but have since been released.
“A 91-year-old male, also in the back (of the mini-van), suffered only very minor injuries. He was examined and released at scene. He went via police transport to the Foothills Hospital,” Campbell said.
The semi was being driven by a 44-year-old man from Grande Prairie. His co-driver is a 37-year-old man from Delta, B.C. Both suffered minor injuries and were transported to Foothills Hospital with non life-threatening injuries as a precaution, according to Campbell.
The collision caused major delays on Highway 1, as the eastbound lane was shut down for six to eight hours, to allow the RCMP traffic collision analyst to complete an investigation.
“A single westbound lane was shut for a minor period of time to allow emergency vehicles to collect and to turn around the vehicles that were caught between Morley Road and the accident,” Campbell said.
“Traffic was diverted from Morley Road onto (Highway) 1A which caused a significant back-up from Highway 22 almost all the way to Highway 40.”
Tolls Charged
Some motorists trying to avoid the traffic snarl made a decision to cut through land on the Stoney Reserve at Morley, according to Campbell, a decision that angered local residents, with some deciding to charge those drivers a $20 “toll” to pass through.
“We have reports of that,” Campbell confirmed. “It wasn’t on the provincial highways, it was on the side gravel roads that this was occurring.
“At this time we’ve fielded several complaints and we are investigating. That is extortion. If they’re being forced to pay, we’ll be looking at possible extortion charges if we can prove it.”
Stoney Nakoda First Nation Tribal Administrator Ken Christensen said the issue goes back to June when construction work began on Highway 1, which runs through the reserve.
“There’s been a lot of traffic delays owing to the paving. Nation members, chiefs, council and administration have no problem with people detouring off the TransCanada onto the public road at exit 131 to get to the 1A,” he said. “But what’s been happening is people have been going onto reserve roads that are gravel and we consider them residential districts.”
Christensen said Nation members are “fed up” with people speeding, stirring up dust and putting children playing and livestock at risk.
“We’ve even hired Nation members on occasion to deal with people coming on these roads illegally, trying to detour them back on the exit 131 road that connects with Highway 1A.”
While Christensen said he accepts that the situation on Aug. 25 was “a bit different because there was an accident,” he said it “doesn’t give people the right to ignore the property rights of people here on the reserve.
“The only people involved in the emergency were the people in the accident, RCMP and any EMS staff and a few other people. People coming through the reserve, they did not have an emergency. They merely had an inconvenience. They cannot trespass on the reserve to save themselves 15 minutes.”
Christensen said the collecting of a toll was not approved by the Chiefs, Council or Tribal Administration, however, he couldn’t “condemn people who collected a toll.”
Campbell said while the collision on Aug. 25 was an extraordinary situation, RCMP will be working on ways to deal with traffic backups in the area in the future.
“I’ve never seen the traffic get that backed up before, so we are working on ways of minimizing and reducing that (kind of situation,)” Campbell said. “We don’t want to see people hung up for hours on end because that just forces other things. People are patient to a point and then they start doing silly things.”
“What I’ve been advised by our transportation officials is that we were put into a position where that was the only possible detour that we could use, and that’s unfortunate, but that was what it was,” Premier Rachel Notley told reporters in a scrum after a campaign rally in Calgary on Aug. 25.
If you have any information on any crime, call your local RCMP detachment or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477) or online at tipsubmit.ca
