Off-duty firefighter Stefan Beckmann and his wife were out for a leisurely stroll with their dog near Osoyoos on Sunday afternoon when they made a startling discovery.
“I could just make out a small amount of red down in there,” said Suzie Beckmann, returning to the site on Tuesday off Highway 3 near Blacktail Road.
The couple also heard faint cries before they went to investigate.
“I saw the vehicle overturned right here at this location,” said Beckmann. “The vehicle had come off the highway here , probably was airborne for maybe 50 or so feet,. There’s a deep depression where it hit nose-first, then it must have catapulted over these small trees.”
A middle-aged man from Trail, who was driving from Victoria to the West Kootenays, had lost control of his vehicle and crashed down the steep embankment on Saturday night.
“I came in this way and I could see the man was lying on his back really quite trapped between the vehicle and this brush,” Beckmann said.
The crash site wasn’t visible from the roadway and the driver had spent 16 agonizing and helpless hours overnight with his arm trapped under the vehicle, hoping to be discovered.
“He told me he had crawled out of the car through a window during the morning time and he couldn’t feel his arm and left side,” Beckmann added.
Members of the Anarchist Mountain Fire Department who responded to the rescue call said the man is lucky to be alive.
“Very lucky,” said fire captain Ajai Sehgal. “He was very severely dehydrated when we found him after lying there all night. He was lucky it was a beautiful sunny day because that warmed him up and he was lying in direct sunlight otherwise hypothermia would have set in.”
As for the Beckmanns, they say they were just in the right place at the right time.
“It feels really good to be able to help somebody out who really needs that help,” he said.
Sehgal said the driver likely fell asleep at the wheel, causing the single-vehicle accident.
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