Seatbelts save family as pickup plunges into creek

Wearing seatbelts likely helped save the lives of five people in a pickup truck that plunged off Highway 19 into Cowie Creek north of Fanny Bay, police and fire officials said.

The five, members of a Nanaimo family, were returning home from a visit to Mount Washington on Sunday afternoon when the crash happened.

Police said everyone in the vehicle appeared to be wearing seatbelts.

“The fact that everyone is still alive and made it to the hospital is almost a miracle,” RCMP Cpl. Jason Thompson told CHEK News.

A 10-year-old, an 11-year-old, their parents and an uncle were in the pickup.

“I sent two firefighters down with tools and the victims were still in the vehicle, but we did not require any tools to get them out,” Deep Bay Fire Deputy Chief Ed Pater said.

“But it was a scratch-your-head scene, because I couldn’t believe they were all alive and talking, so they were very fortunate.”

Police told CHEK News that the driver might have been blinded by the sun shining on the road.

The pickup went off the highway on the left side of a right-hand curve, went along a grass median for about 170 metres, hit an abutment between the northbound and southbound bridges and launched into the creek below.

“It went approximately another 25 metres before it struck the ground and then it appears to have tumbled maybe end over end probably another 10 to 15 metres to where it stopped,” Thompson said.