A 46-year-old man from Whistler is facing charges of impaired driving after a head-on accident on Highway 99 Tuesday (Oct. 31). Squamish RCMP said the man drove his 2000 Lexus into a 2002 Jetta carrying three passengers at approximately 5:30 p.m. on a narrow, two-lane section of the highway 500 metres south of Loggers Creek at Lions Bay.
Fire Rescue used the jaws of life to extricate a 26-year-old Abbotsford man who was "severely pinned" in the Jetta, according to Cpl. Dave Ritchie.
The two remaining Jetta passengers, a 28-year-old man and a 46-year-old woman, were also injured and all three were brought to Lions Gate Hospital. The extent of their injuries was not released by publication time.
Evacuation of the injured and vehicles, and an on-the-scene investigation involving a local collision reconstructionist and two Lower Mainland support held up traffic until approximately 9 p.m., and numerous residents called the RCMP detachment to complain.
"People hate it, but it takes time to clean up these scenes," said Ritchie, adding that recent changes have been made to limit road closures caused by accidents. "We have a local [collision reconstructionist] here now. That was in an agreement we came to when we had a lengthy closure, and we did that to improve the closures."
Ritchie said he understood travelers' frustration, but asked that the public also have a level of understanding.
"It's a terrible inconvenience to travelers, busses and so on, and we realize that," he said. "But obviously, if it was your loved one in there, you wouldn't want them [investigators] to just to take a picture and walking away. You've got to have it investigated properly, especially if you've got an impaired driver causing this type of havoc."
The impaired driver was not injured and was released pending a court appearance.
