Sticky situations, slick surfaces as icy rain hits city
Fall injuries jam ERs, road travel perilous, school buses cancelled
Freezing rain that hardened to thick, sheer ice overnight had an impact on everything from schools and hospitals to sidewalks and roads in Regina and surrounding areas on Wednesday.
INJURIES BURDEN HOSPITALS
Victims of fall-related injuries Tuesday evening, after the rain started, flooded Regina’s emergency rooms.
At the busiest point, the General Hospital had 81 emergency patients and the Pasqua 68. Both only have 33 stretchers in their respective emergency units. Glen Perchie, executive director of emergency and EMS with the Saskatchewan Health Authority, said the situation forced staff to “get creative.”
“We see patients in hallways, we see them in chairs, we see them anywhere we can find,” he said.
The hospital called in additional physicians. Wait times extended to five hours or more during at the height of the influx. “We saw broken wrists, broken ankles, broken noses, you name it, and a number of car accidents as well,” he explained.
Several patients required orthopedic surgery for injuries, including two fractured hips. As of Wednesday afternoon, 16 patients between the two hospitals awaited surgery, mostly for fall-related injuries.
Sandy Euteneier, executive director of surgical services, said staff were “overwhelmed with the number of fractures.” Extra nurses were called in, surgical hours extended and elective surgeries were deferred.
She expects a “tight” situation throughout the week.
Paramedics worked hard through the “treacherous” road conditions, Perchie said. EMS teams from four surrounding municipalities stayed to help out after bringing patients to Regina hospitals.
Overall, paramedics responded to 30 fall-related injuries during a 12-hour period from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday morning. Some paramedics attached chains to their boots to keep their footing while navigating the ice.
Despite all the challenges, Perchie said Wednesday that hospitals were moving patients well through emergency. To keep things that way, he advised residents to take care. “Salt, shovel, sand — and if you don’t need to go outside don’t.”
If residents have to brave the conditions, he pleaded to keep your hands out of your pockets and have them at the ready to help protect against serious injuries.
Broken hips can be “life-threatening” and “devastating” for seniors. “I’d rather have a broken wrist than other things,” he added.
STUDENT TRANSPORT
In an unprecedented move, Regina’s public and Catholic schools cancelled all student transportation — buses and transport vehicles — for Wednesday due to icy conditions.
Neither had ever cancelled transportation due to ice before but made the decision together for safety reasons, just as they do when transportation is cancelled due to extreme cold.
“Our buses go down side streets. Side streets don’t get sanded right away,” said Twylla West, Catholic division spokeswoman.
“It’s very, very dangerous, and we don’t want to put anyone in the position of potentially being hurt.”
Public division spokesman Terry Lazarou added that any inconvenience was preferable to injuries.
West said reaching the decision posed a unique challenge. “How do you measure icy?” she asked, noting there is no clear threshold for a cancellation, as there is with temperature.
City police and school staff with first-hand knowledge of road conditions were consulted.
Although schools remained open Wednesday, attendance numbers were down as expected.
HIGHWAY TRAVEL
As the rain began Tuesday, RCMP issued a warning to drivers to use “extreme caution,” subsequently reporting a number of vehicles had hit the ditch.
Later that evening, between 7:30 p.m. or 8 p.m., the owner of Highway #1 Towing in Indian Head also fielded a similar warning from the RCMP.
“They called us and asked us to stay off the highways until they called back and let us know it was good to go,” Jerry Merk said.
The move benefited everyone, he said, explaining that towing becomes more dangerous for operators under such conditions. When hearing, visibility and traction is reduced, Merk said his job becomes much more stressful.
Realizing no tow truck will be available to assist when something goes wrong further encourages drivers to stay safe, or avoid travel entirely, he said.
“I’ve noticed that in the past two years, they’ve been doing it more and more,” he said of the RCMP shut down.
“It saves our lives, and everybody else’s lives.”
Merk and his drivers were up and running again by about midnight.
His company, which only handles passenger vehicles, fielded about nine calls last night.
Club Towing, out of Regina, tows larger vehicles. Staff member Jessica Bennet said when conditions were at their worst, they responded to somewhere between 10 and 20 calls to pull semi trucks out of highway ditches.
Regina-based Canadian Blood Services staff spent the night in Yorkton, instead of travelling home on icy roads after hosting a donor clinic there. Wednesday morning appointments in Regina were cancelled as a result.
CITY TRAVEL
One Regina man made the most of the layer of ice covering his street by strapping on his skates and taking a spin around the block.
But for many others, the conditions led to stress and travel treachery. Some took to social media to remark on the slippery conditions and warn others to take their time — if they could get in their vehicles. The freezing rain sealed shut some car doors.
As of about 10 a.m. Wednesday, Regina police reported a total of 17 vehicle crashes in the preceding 24 hours, three of which resulted in injuries. However, police couldn’t say if all were due to road conditions.
Road crews in Regina and Moose Jaw were out in force to provide motorists and pedestrians with a little traction.
The City of Regina said its crews applied sand and salt to roads and city-owned sidewalks, “systematically working through the road network.”
Norman Kyle, director of roadways and transportation, said crews couldn’t begin work until the rain began to freeze.
“It’s really a matter of waiting because even if we were putting down liquid de-icer, the fact that it was rain — it would wash a lot of that off.”
The city is offering free sand for public use. For more information, residents can visit the regina.ca/ residents/winter/.