A northern Alberta woman is grateful to have escaped unharmed after two massive vehicle pileups on Highway 43 near Fox Creek, involving 17 and 15 vehicles each, which left one man dead.
Paulette Melnyk, who was in the passenger seat while husband Bill drove, was on a 560-kilometre drive from Bay Tree, Alta. to Edmonton Saturday morning, when bad weather started about 100 kilometres into their drive, near Wanham.
“You could see ice was starting to build up on the road and it was getting a little bit slippery,” she said.
“We slowed down immensely before, thank goodness, before we got there.”
The pair was on Highway 43 near Fox Creek when they found a chaotic scene unfolding.
“We just started sliding so my husband decided the best thing would be to grab the shoulder because there was snow on the shoulder. [But] he looked in his mirror and he saw a [double tractor trailer] coming behind us. He knew that [it] wasn’t going to be able to stop so he quickly moved over and got in between the cars that were already stopped.”
READ MORE: Dashcam video captures Alberta driver hitting 600-pound moose at highway speed
Melnyk said the semi truck driver behind them took the ditch as he tried to come to a stop, potentially preventing injuries or something worse.
“He would have hit all the vehicles, including us,” she said.
“I thought we were going to be hit from behind. I was just so shocked that we didn’t have a vehicle slam into us. It was, I guess, a Christmas miracle.”
Melnyk and her husband ended up stuck on the highway, as first responders, tow truck drivers and highway sanders moved in to clear up the pileups and vehicles that had spun out. One man, described by RCMP as a man in his 70s, died in one of the two collisions, which were one kilometre apart.
“We just listened to Christmas music and stayed in our vehicle, left it running – we had a lot of fuel – so we weren’t worried about running out of fuel,” she said of the wait.
The pair ultimately spent three-and-a-half hours waiting on the highway, a time Melnyk calls “frustrating.”
“What are you going to do? We’re all stuck in that situation so it was long. It was definitely starting to wear on me,” she said.
READ MORE: Grieving mother joins residents asking for improvements to highway west of Edmonton
Finally, around 4:30 p.m., traffic started to move again. Melnyk said it was slow-going at first but around Whitecourt, the roads cleared up. The pair made it to Edmonton at 8 p.m., almost 12 hours after they left home on what normally is a six-hour drive.
Melnyk said she was still shaking Saturday night over the experience.
“We felt quite fortunate. There were so many vehicles flying around – it was amazing we didn’t get hit by anybody,” she said.
Leslie Ayre-Jaschke was on her way from Peace River to Edmonton Saturday, when she ran into the stalled traffic on Highway 43 near Fox Creek.
“When we got to that spot, there was an RCMP car and the officer was just putting out cones to close the highway,” she said.
Ayre-Jaschke said she made the decision to turn around and go back to Fox Creek.
“We checked Twitter and realized it was going to be a three to four-hour delay minimum. We just decided to get a hotel and wait it out,” she said.
“Just while we were waiting to make that turn to go back to Fox Creek, a semi pulled off the road into the median just to avoid rear-ending a bunch of us, so we are grateful for that.”
The Peace River woman said the decision was easy to make.
“We’re pretty pragmatic and we just decided it wasn’t worth the rush.”
Ayre-Jaschke said she and her husband left Fox Creek early Sunday morning, making it to Edmonton by mid-morning.
Cpl. Laurel Scott with Alberta RCMP said it took from 1 p.m. until 9 p.m. on Saturday to clear up the Fox Creek-area collisions.
“It was the largest collision I’m was aware of,” she said.
“I was getting reports from across the province. I had a report from Didsbury that north of Crossfield was like a skating rink. It was not just [the Fox Creek] area. I don’t know it was the worst. There were lots of treacherous areas.”
READ MORE: Are winter tires worth it? What Alberta drivers need to know
Police are asking drivers to travel slowly, be patient and allow for a greater braking distance while on the roads.
Scott said it is too early to say whether any charges will come out of the two collisions on Highway 43.
Comments