Two injured in wrong-way crash at 406 construction site

A 23-year-old St. Catharines woman is charged with impaired driving after a head-on crash in a Highway 406 construction zone left two people with injuries Tuesday morning.

Ontario Provincial Police Const. Rob Knight said the drivers of both vehicles were taken to local hospitals with injuries that were not life-threatening.

The crash occurred at about 5 a.m. in the southbound lane of the highway, north of Beaverdams Road.

A construction project has reduced the highway to two lanes, separated by concrete construction barriers as the highway crosses the Lake Gibson bridge.

“That area is reduced to onelane in the construction zone,” Knight said. “Unfortunately, with any wrong-way vehicle when there’s only one lane, there’s very few places a person can go to escape.”

He said police are investigating the cause of the crash to determine how the northbound vehicle made its way onto the southbound lane of the highway.

“We don’t know which interchange was used, but we did get reports from witnesses that … a dark vehicle was northbound in the southbound lanes near Merritt Road (at Welland’s north border),” Knight added.

He said the vehicle “could have entered the wrong lane of the highway anywhere along that stretch.”

OPP Sgt. Kerry Schmidt posted on Twitter that the female driver was charged with impaired driving, with an 80-plus blood alcohol level, as well as dangerous operation of a motor vehicle.