Truck driver dies in hospital after crash and 10-hour rescue effort
A truck driver who was trapped inside his crushed vehicle on the side of a snowy southern Interior highway for two days has died of his injuries.
The man, identified as Pat Gaudet by his aunt, died Saturday morning, a few hours before his mother arrived at the hospital from Prince Edward Island. His wife and two daughters, ages 11 and 14, were with him, Joyce McCardle said in a telephone interview.
Several agencies worked together to extricate the 45-yearold driver from his truck, off the side of Highway 3 in Manning Park.
Gaudet went missing late Tuesday when his truck careened off the highway and down a steep slope. He was found by searchand-rescue crews on Thursday morning.
A 10-hour rescue followed, with a mechanic lowered down the mountainside to remove the truck’s transmission and allow rescuers to access Gaudet’s legs, which were pinned in the mangled truck.
McCardle remembered her nephew as a “fine young man,” who could not abide a bully. His own father became a quadriplegic in March 1973 after a truck crash. Gaudet was only one year old at the time, but the experience gave him “an empathy for people,” his aunt said.
His wife was the love of his life, she said, adding his family, who lives in Oliver, is “heartbroken” by his death.
“After a rescue like that, everyone thought it was a miracle. When you live through him being missing and then being found alive, it’s hard to lose him again.”
McCardle said Gaudet was conscious during the rescue, and his wife was at the side of the highway when he was removed from his truck and lifted up the snowcovered slope.