A 51-year-old woman is dead, and four others were injured following a head-on collision in Saint-Valentin, roughly 60 km south of Montreal.
Sûreté du Québec (SQ) spokesperson Audrey-Anne Bilodeau said the crash happened at around 8 p.m. Saturday on Chemin de la 3ième ligne when an eastbound vehicle veered into the westbound lane, crashing into a pickup truck.
“For a reason that is still under investigation, the driver of the small car ended up in the opposite lane,” Bilodeau said.
The driver of the small car suffered critical injuries and was rushed to hospital where she died a few hours later.
The four people in the pickup truck, a man, a woman and two children in the back seat, also suffered serious injuries in the crash.
The woman was listed as critical on Saturday, but her condition stabilized overnight, Bilodeau said.
The small country road was closed until 4 a.m. Sunday to allow for the investigation.
Bilodeau said the cause of the crash is not yet known.
“When it occurred, there was no snow, no rain, it’s not in a curve, it’s a straight line,” Bilodeau said, adding there were no brake marks on the road, indicating the driving of the small car didn’t attempt to stop.
“Speeding may have been involved,” Bilodeau said. “But there are a lot of hypotheses on the table.”
The coroner’s office has requested a toxicological analysis, but Bilodeau said it could take several weeks for the results to be known.
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