A 33-year-old man believed to be from Prince Rupert was taken to the hospital early Sept. 6, after a single-vehicle crash on Highway 16 at 2:06 a.m. While officers on the scene thought the man had more serious injuries, he was taken to the Prince Rupert hospital where he had non-life threatening injuries.
The cause of the crash is still under investigation, Staff Sgt. Dave Uppal said.
“The vehicle sustained extensive damage, so we are still looking into the full cause of the incident,” Uppal said.
When officers arrived on the scene, the 2014 Subaru legacy was completely totalled and debris covered a wide area. The man was found in the driver’s seat, and the fire department used the jaws of life to get him out of the wreckage.
Darcy Robinson was one of the first few people who arrived on the scene. Robinson and his son were leaving work when they saw smoke.
“You couldn’t even tell what kind of car was sitting in the ditch,” he said.
They pulled over, and shone their headlights on the vehicle. Another vehicle and a cab stopped to help, called 911 and began looking in the ditch to see if anyone had been ejected from the car. The man inside the vehicle was still sitting in the driver’s seat, unconscious but breathing, his head pinned behind the passenger seat. They didn’t move him in case his neck or back were broken, but were ready to try to take him out of the vehicle if it lit on fire.
“From what it looked like, he hit the tree, came up, spun around and went back in the bush backwards into the same ditch. The motor was about 30 feet away from the vehicle down the road,” Robinson said.
When the ambulance and fire department arrived, they removed the driver’s door as the witnesses helped hold the other car doors open for the paramedics.
“It looked horrible,” Robinson said. “I’m just hoping the guy is OK.”
Prince Rupert RCMP closed a section of Highway 16 one kilometre east of Rupert from after 2 a.m. until just before 8 a.m. as a traffic analyst examined the scene. A corporal from Terrace assisted in the investigation. A detour was set up along Prince Rupert Boulevard, so drivers could still access the highway.
Read more RCMP files from Prince Rupert here.
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