BOWDEN – Innisfail RCMP are asking motorists who witnessed the Thursday, Aug. 1 dinner-time rollover of a semi on Highway 2 near Bowden to send them any dash camera video they might have to help police establish a cause for the crash.
“It's unclear at this point what actually happened that caused the truck to crash. There are different views of what happened right now,” said Innisfail RCMP Staff Sgt. Ian Ihme, whose detachment was the primary responder to the crash. “We're hoping somebody's going to have some dash cam footage that will show us exactly what happened.
“Somebody wasn't paying attention, which then led to this truck crashing somehow but hopefully somebody has dash camera that shows what actually occurred,” added Ihme. “It's just that vehicles don't crash on a nice summer day for no reason.”
RCMP told the Albertan that the first call of the single-vehicle crash on Highway 2 came in at 4:55 p.m.
Ihme said a northbound semi lost control and ended up in the southbound lanes, about a kilometre north of Bowden.
“I think he hit the ditch and flipped onto its side, and then just skidded into the oncoming lane of traffic,” said Ihme. “It was blocking up traffic going both north and south for quite a while.”
The Innisfail detachment commander added no other vehicles on either side of the freeway were impacted by the crash.
“Miraculously, no. As far as we know there's been no reports of any other property damage, other than just to the highway infrastructure and the truck itself,” said Ihme, adding the semi driver sustained just slight injuries. “He was checked out by EMS at the scene but I don't believe he required any other medical attention.”
He said the highway crash response also had support from Alberta Sheriffs with traffic control, Mainroad Alberta Contracting with highway maintenance and City Wide Towing from Red Deer removing the semi from the highway.
The collision caused traffic delays, especially for southbound motorists, for up to three hours, said Ihme.
“I think our guys were cleared from the scene by eight o'clock, and I think the tow truck was just doing the final cleanup at that point,” said Ihme.
Witnesses reported the semi rollover forced many southbound motorists to take back roads from Innisfail.
The province's travel advisory service gave an update shortly after 9 p.m. Thursday that said northbound lanes of the highway had fully reopened and that one southbound lane was also open.