Multi-vehicle pileup closes Skyway
Only one non-life-threatening injury was reported after a pileup involving at least six vehicles all but closed the Garden City Skyway to traffic for hours, Thursday morning.
The crash closed most of the lanes on the QEW for more than two hours as the initial cleanup was underway, while westbound lanes remained closed until about 1:30 p.m. as police investigated the crash.
Ontario Provincial Police Const. Lauren Ball said the incident began at about 8:52 a.m. when a collision occurred between a car and pickup truck in the eastbound lane on the Skyway. The vehicles collided with enough force to flip the pickup truck over the median and into the westbound lane, causing a chain reaction of collisions that included an SUV, a dump truck, a transport truck hauling cars, and a second transport truck carrying steel girders.
Ball said there were “several other vehicles” involved in the crash, too, although she didn’t have “details of how many other vehicles or what kind of vehicles there are.”
She said one person was trapped in the wreckage following the collision, but “they were extracted and transported to hospital with nonlife-threatening injuries.”
“Luckily, there were no other injuries,” Ball said.
Traffic was backed up along the highway for several kilometres as emergency crews cleared the wreckage immediately following the crash, when all westbound lanes were closed and only one lane remained open for eastbound vehicles.
The volume of traffic on the highway at the time also hindered clean up efforts. Large tow trucks brought in to clear the transport trucks had to be escorted through the bumper-to-bumper vehicles stopped on the Skyway.
“It took a little bit longer than normal. There are no shoulders available there,” Ball said.
After allowing traffic to clear the area, the westbound lanes were again closed to traffic until about 1:30 p.m., to allow police investigators access to the area.
Vehicles detoured off the highway caused slow-moving traffic through the city, on Glendale and Queenston Street, as well as traffic backups on Thorold Stone Road in Niagara Falls.
Several Niagara Emergency Medical Service ambulances were called to the scene, along with St. Catharines firefighters.
The crash remains under investigation by the OPP.