Eight hospitalized after horrendous crash
‘It was pretty scary:’ says driver who was at scene
Crash victims were thrown on both sides of the Queen Elizabeth Way after a one-vehicle accident Tuesday that closed all lanes of the highway in Burlington at Guelph Line. Multiple victims were ejected from a van, according to witnesses and police at the scene. None of the passengers thrown from the van were hit by traffic, but police said some appeared to be in critical condition.
The smoke from slammed brakes was so thick he thought it was fog. Then he saw the bodies. “It was hard to make sense of what I was seeing in that split second,” said JP McGrath, who was making his daily QEW commute home to Hamilton from his job in Mississauga Tuesday afternoon when, just ahead of him in the opposite lanes, a van flipped and spilled its passengers onto the road.
“It was pretty scary,” he said. “My prayers are just with the families of those that are out there.”
Eight people were sent to hospital, including two in critical condition, after the single-vehicle, rollover crash on the Queen Elizabeth Way in Burlington between the Guelph Line on- and off-ramps. Multiple people were thrown from the vehicle, landing in both highway directions.
OPP Sgt. Kerry Schmidt said EMS took all victims to Burlington and Hamilton hospitals by ground ambulance. He said nobody was hit by vehicles after they were thrown from the van.
“Everyone is alive, but I know there are people fighting for their life right now,” he said at the scene. “Those injuries are critical and serious and I know that if they were wearing a seatbelt those injuries probably, could be, much less.”
McGrath initially thought he was driving into a weird fog bank on the highway.
“But then I realized, no, that’s not fog. That’s smoke from brakes. Then I saw a vehicle had flipped and got smacked at least two or three times by different vehicles. I saw three or four bodies.”
McGrath said many motorists near the crash jumped out of their vehicles to tend to the injured victims. Schmidt said that this year OPP have investigated the collision deaths of 30 people who were not wearing seatbelts.
Police reopened the highway at about 6:30 p.m. All lanes of the QEW were closed at Guelph Line for the investigation, with vehicles that were trapped behind the crash scene being allowed around in one lane in either direction.
The crash happened Tuesday about 2:30 p.m. when the Torontobound minivan crashed, rolling and coming to rest on its roof at the centre median, said Schmidt.
Schmidt said the collision reconstruction team will be assisting with the investigation, which he said is expected to be “lengthy.”
Anyone with information about the crash is asked to call the Burlington OPP detachment.
Schmidt said the investigation will look at everything from driver error, to mechanical issues, to the use of seatbelts.