Wrong-way driver causes chaos on T.C.H., Outer Ring Road Sunday night
Man accompanied by police as he is taken to hospital following crash
A wrong-way pickup driver caused chaos on the Transcanada highway and the Outer Ring Road Sunday night and eventually crashed his truck into a ditch on the Outer Ring Road.
Witness Jessica Mullin told The Telegram that, minutes before the crash, she found the man in his truck as it sat parked eastbound in the middle of the eastbound lane of the Transcanada near the Donovans Industrial Park in Mount Pearl. Other vehicles were slowing or stopped because of the situation. She and another woman tried to convince the man to turn off his truck and get out, but he just stared at her and didn’t respond. She then took a piece of metal from the bed of the man’s truck and was going to break his window but held back because she didn’t want to injure him.
That’s when the male started to drive off, with Mullin and the other woman hanging on
to the vehicle. They eventually let go and the truck sped off at a high rate of speed, nearly hitting
several vehicles that had stopped near the scene and running a number of other moving vehicles off the road. One Twitter user, responding to Mullin’s post about the incident, said his daughter was in one of the vehicles that was nearly struck and was “quite shaken up.’”
The eastbound truck then crossed the median into the westbound lanes just before the Paradise exit and continued eastbound in the wrong lane. It appears the truck swerved into the median again, came back into the wrong lane and crashed in the ditch east of the Paradise exit.
According to emergency officials on scene, several other vehicles were nearly hit before the pickup crashed.
The driver had to be placed on a backboard and stretcher before he was placed in the ambulance. He was accompanied by police for the trip to the hospital.
The RNC is investigating the incident.