‘I’m surprised I didn’t die today’
Couple barely escape with their lives after their car collides with truck turning left onto Malahat highway
Shaelyn Vernon and Chris Pollitt believe they were inches away from death early Saturday when their 2001 Honda Civic was struck by another vehicle on the Malahat.
“When I pulled myself out of the car, I lost it,” Vernon, 21, said. “I’m surprised I didn’t die today.”
The Sooke couple were travelling south in the direction of Langford when their vehicle was struck by a truck which was making a left turn from Whittaker Road onto the Malahat, just north of the Shawnigan Lake exit.
“I looked down to change a song on the radio and when I looked up I saw the truck directly in front of us,” said Vernon, who was sitting in the front passenger seat of the Honda.
“Next thing I know, we were spinning and hitting things. It felt like we were crashing forever. We ended up on the median.”
The Ford truck hit the Honda on its passenger side, near where Vernon was seated. The air bags did not deploy, Pollitt said. Two ground-ambulance crews were dispatched to the scene at 8:30 a.m, according to B.C. Emergency Health Services. The couple received treatment from paramedics on the scene before being transferred by ambulance to Victoria General Hospital.
Pollitt, 25, who was driving, was relatively unharmed but Vernon suffered several injuries in the crash, including a broken clavicle.
The passenger side window shattered during the crash, sending small shards into Vernon’s eyes, which is being treated with medication. “The whole right side of my body is cut up,” she said.
It could have been far worse. Vernon was just doing up her seatbelt at the time of the crash. (Pollitt had stopped moments before, so she could use a bathroom).
But the car is now a write-off due to the extensive damage, Vernon said. “It looks like we were in a garbage compactor.
The whole side is ripped open. I looked at it once I got out, and thought: ‘Holy [expletive]. I can’t believe we were in that.’ “
Lieut. Gerry Lacquement of the Malahat Volunteer Fire Department, whose station is located at 935 Whittaker Rd., less than one kilometre from where the crash happened, was on the scene within minutes.
He joined two separate passersby — one of whom was a nurse, the other an industrial first-aid attendant — who had stopped minutes earlier to offer help. “Sometimes you luck out and get good people who happen upon the scene,” Lacquement said.
He arrived to find the Honda facing the wrong direction. After impact, the vehicle had been spun around and was deposited onto the safety barrier, facing north.
“It turns out they were going southbound, but the vehicle was facing opposite their direction of travel.”
The crash took place just north of the oft-discussed Shawnigan Lake Road exit, a section of the highway that has received extensive safety upgrades in recent years.
But the Malahat as a whole has long been a concern for Vernon, who said several friends have been in crashes in the vicinity.
A friend of her father, who lived with the Vernon family when she was young, died on the highway the day he received his motorcycle licence 13 years ago.
“The amount of friends I’ve had die on the Malahat, who haven’t made it through those crashes, is insane,” she said.
“At least I made it, though.”