Semi loses control on Coquihalla Highway causing 10-car pileup

A major crash has occurred on the Coquihalla Highway.

“A commercial transport vehicle traveling southbound on Highway 5 apparently was unable to stop, and collided with 13 other vehicles”, Const. Melissa Wutke, spokeswoman for BC RCMP Traffic Services, said Friday evening.

“There was no way that semi would have been able to safely have stopped before the stopped traffic”, she says.

The provincial government says Highway 5 southbound was to remain closed at the Box Canyon chain-up area until late Friday night.

Officials said one person had to be airlifted to hospital in critical condition, but that their injuries are not considered to be life-threatening.

Norm Draeger says it looks like the truck hit about two dozen cars on its way down the hill.

Kenward told CTV News that he’d passed the scene just as emergency vehicles arrived, and said several people had gotten out of their vehicles to tend to those who had been injured. He says vehicles had been stopped on the highway because of construction.

Joey Kenward, play-by-play announcer for the Vancouver Canucks was also on the scene when the accident happened. “Our priority is first to assist any injured, and ensure emergency health services can get access to those individuals and get them to hospital”.

Estimates suggested that as few as 10 and as many as 30 vehicles were involved in the accident, believed to have been started by a semi-trailer that lost control around 2:30 p.m.