UPDATED: More crash victims treated at hospital
Total of 10 arrive at hospital Friday, three still in critical care
A total of 10 victims from Friday's massive pileup on Hwy. 401 in Newcastle required medical attention at local hospitals, and three remain in critical care.
Hospital officials reported the additional casualties Saturday morning.
Aaron Lazarus, senior director of communications for Lakeridge Health, said three victims in the crash arrived at hospital Friday on their own. Medical officials have been treating, in the most serious cases, head injuries, but also cuts, bruises and various bone fractures.
The highway is open today following the lengthy cleanup, but in the aftermath of Friday's multi-vehicle crash, it looked as if a child's toy box had been upended, and the 10-kilometre stretch of Hwy. 401 through Durham Region was littered with broken cars and trucks.
Police report that roughly 70-80 vehicles were involved in a series of collisions between Newtonville and Newcastle. The collisions were sparked by a sudden winter storm shortly after 3 p.m.
With nearly 100 people involved, it was "remarkable" so few people were injured, said Steve Grosjean of the OPP.
For hours motorists sat parked among the tangled rubber and steel, unable to free their vehicles.
By 8 p.m. stranded drivers were being transported by bus to the nearby Newcastle Recreation Centre on Rudell Road where OPP were taking witness statements while tow truck drivers lined up smashed vehicles.
It was six minutes after 3 p.m. when Darren Reid of Bowmanville was westbound on Hwy. 401 near Mill Street when the snow hit -- hard. Describing it as a near whiteout, he saw some brake and headlights and "stuff started banging".
Waiting for a ride home at the Newcastle Recreation Centre, Mr. Reid described how he had "missed about 30 cars; I got one of them".
Holding his fingers mere centimetres apart, he indicated how close his vehicle had come to the others.
Mr. Reid recalled the scene of the crash. With cars mangled around him, he invited strangers to warm themselves in his car. One of their cars would start, but the whole back end was missing.
Victims of the crash thanked Salvation Army volunteers for the hot drinks and food they had assembled at the community centre. At one point the Salvation Army sent a van to the crash scene to deliver drinks to stranded motorists.
Two of those volunteers were Nancy and Kevin Thompson with the Salvation Army of Bowmanville-Oshawa.
"We had sandwiches, hot and cold drinks and someone just made a Timmy's run," said Mrs.Thompson. They were prepared to stay at the centre all night if needed.
Acting Staff Sergeant Carlos Goncalves, Whitby OPP, said the number of vehicles and people involved, combined with the snow and cold, made moving the victims to somewhere warm and safe the top priority.
He praised the volunteers who helped make a difficult situation easier for everyone.
Victims were understandably frustrated, he said, but with the arrival of Salvation Army volunteers people began to relax.
Staff Sgt. Goncalves said the most effective way to get them out of the cold was two buses. Almost a dozen police officers were on hand at the recreation centre taking statements. Those people whose vehicles could be driven were returned to the accident scene after providing a statement. The remainder waited for family or friends to pick them up.
A handful of people, unable to find rides, hopped in with Staff Sgt. Goncalves who drove them home.
At Lakeridge Health locations in Bowmanville and Oshawa, where injured victims were treated, emergency procedures were invoked that saw officials going through the hospital department by department to ensure appropriate resources were available to handle incoming patients. Extra staff were called in to assist, said Mr. Lazarus.
At the Newcastle Mill Street bridge shortly after the crash, Metroland reporter Karen Longwell reported near white-out conditions, with people walking over the bridge to look at the accident scene or take pictures. She said some drivers were stuck in the crash, while others were out walking around.
What would normally take 10 minutes to drive from Port Hope to Newtonville via Hwy. 401 took Ms. Longwell — who was the first reporter on the scene — a good hour to get there.
“It’s pretty chaotic,” Ms. Longwell said, describing cars facing every which way and into the ditch. “The entire highway is covered in snow.”
At the front of the pileup, a jack-knifed trailer sat sprawled across all three lanes of traffic with what she described as a car “smashed underneath it.”
Newcastle resident Stan Zuly has “never seen anything this serious” in the five years he has lived in the area.
Sid DeJong was sitting in his home near County Road 2 when he heard the sirens.
“I’ve never seen an accident this bad before.... This is the biggest I’ve heard of."
Snow squalls in the Pickering to Oshawa corridor moved east to the Port Hope area by evening.
More than 50 trucks from the Region of Durham’s depots were loaded with salt and sent out to tackle the conditions.
“We made sure that all our trucks were fully loaded and fueled up and that we had enough people coming in to handle the workload...,” said Uldis Siksna, the Region’s manager of maintenance operations.
Regional crews applied salt brine to a few of the roads prior to the snowfall to prevent the bonding of snow and ice to pavements.
Total of 10 arrive at hospital Friday, three still in critical care
A total of 10 victims from Friday's massive pileup on Hwy. 401 in Newcastle required medical attention at local hospitals, and three remain in critical care.
Hospital officials reported the additional casualties Saturday morning.
Aaron Lazarus, senior director of communications for Lakeridge Health, said three victims in the crash arrived at hospital Friday on their own. Medical officials have been treating, in the most serious cases, head injuries, but also cuts, bruises and various bone fractures.
The highway is open today following the lengthy cleanup, but in the aftermath of Friday's multi-vehicle crash, it looked as if a child's toy box had been upended, and the 10-kilometre stretch of Hwy. 401 through Durham Region was littered with broken cars and trucks.
Police report that roughly 70-80 vehicles were involved in a series of collisions between Newtonville and Newcastle. The collisions were sparked by a sudden winter storm shortly after 3 p.m.
With nearly 100 people involved, it was "remarkable" so few people were injured, said Steve Grosjean of the OPP.
For hours motorists sat parked among the tangled rubber and steel, unable to free their vehicles.
By 8 p.m. stranded drivers were being transported by bus to the nearby Newcastle Recreation Centre on Rudell Road where OPP were taking witness statements while tow truck drivers lined up smashed vehicles.
It was six minutes after 3 p.m. when Darren Reid of Bowmanville was westbound on Hwy. 401 near Mill Street when the snow hit -- hard. Describing it as a near whiteout, he saw some brake and headlights and "stuff started banging".
Waiting for a ride home at the Newcastle Recreation Centre, Mr. Reid described how he had "missed about 30 cars; I got one of them".
Holding his fingers mere centimetres apart, he indicated how close his vehicle had come to the others.
Mr. Reid recalled the scene of the crash. With cars mangled around him, he invited strangers to warm themselves in his car. One of their cars would start, but the whole back end was missing.
Victims of the crash thanked Salvation Army volunteers for the hot drinks and food they had assembled at the community centre. At one point the Salvation Army sent a van to the crash scene to deliver drinks to stranded motorists.
Two of those volunteers were Nancy and Kevin Thompson with the Salvation Army of Bowmanville-Oshawa.
"We had sandwiches, hot and cold drinks and someone just made a Timmy's run," said Mrs.Thompson. They were prepared to stay at the centre all night if needed.
Acting Staff Sergeant Carlos Goncalves, Whitby OPP, said the number of vehicles and people involved, combined with the snow and cold, made moving the victims to somewhere warm and safe the top priority.
He praised the volunteers who helped make a difficult situation easier for everyone.
Victims were understandably frustrated, he said, but with the arrival of Salvation Army volunteers people began to relax.
Staff Sgt. Goncalves said the most effective way to get them out of the cold was two buses. Almost a dozen police officers were on hand at the recreation centre taking statements. Those people whose vehicles could be driven were returned to the accident scene after providing a statement. The remainder waited for family or friends to pick them up.
A handful of people, unable to find rides, hopped in with Staff Sgt. Goncalves who drove them home.
At Lakeridge Health locations in Bowmanville and Oshawa, where injured victims were treated, emergency procedures were invoked that saw officials going through the hospital department by department to ensure appropriate resources were available to handle incoming patients. Extra staff were called in to assist, said Mr. Lazarus.
At the Newcastle Mill Street bridge shortly after the crash, Metroland reporter Karen Longwell reported near white-out conditions, with people walking over the bridge to look at the accident scene or take pictures. She said some drivers were stuck in the crash, while others were out walking around.
What would normally take 10 minutes to drive from Port Hope to Newtonville via Hwy. 401 took Ms. Longwell — who was the first reporter on the scene — a good hour to get there.
“It’s pretty chaotic,” Ms. Longwell said, describing cars facing every which way and into the ditch. “The entire highway is covered in snow.”
At the front of the pileup, a jack-knifed trailer sat sprawled across all three lanes of traffic with what she described as a car “smashed underneath it.”
Newcastle resident Stan Zuly has “never seen anything this serious” in the five years he has lived in the area.
Sid DeJong was sitting in his home near County Road 2 when he heard the sirens.
“I’ve never seen an accident this bad before.... This is the biggest I’ve heard of."
Snow squalls in the Pickering to Oshawa corridor moved east to the Port Hope area by evening.
More than 50 trucks from the Region of Durham’s depots were loaded with salt and sent out to tackle the conditions.
“We made sure that all our trucks were fully loaded and fueled up and that we had enough people coming in to handle the workload...,” said Uldis Siksna, the Region’s manager of maintenance operations.
Regional crews applied salt brine to a few of the roads prior to the snowfall to prevent the bonding of snow and ice to pavements.
Source : Northumberlandnews
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