BOWDEN - It was the middle of the night on the Queen Elizabeth II Highway and Larry Werner had never seen a road mess like this one in more than 25 years with the Bowden Fire Department.
The department's fire chief was at the scene just north of Bowden with 11 other firefighters when they had their first glimpse of the aftermath of a horrific multi-semi truck crash in miserable early spring road conditions. It began when a northbound semi truck hauling two trailers jack-knifed to set off a chain reaction with four other following semis, crashing into each other, one after another.
"When we got on scene the trucks were already piled up there by the Fas Gas going northbound," said Werner, adding a total of five semis with eight trailers were involved. "Everything stayed on their wheels. They slid into each other and then tangled with each other, twisted around but everything stayed upright.
"Once we got on scene that was the end of them running into each other," he added. "It is the most semis at one time I have every seen."
According to RCMP the crash occurred at about 2:30 a.m. on March 29. Werner's fire department got the call to respond at about 2:50 a.m.
Werner said his firefighters' primary role was to secure the scene, check for any missing motorists, treat the injured and work with the RCMP on traffic control and keep the scene safe.
He said his firefighters had to extricate one truck driver from his vehicle.
"He could get out but not on his own so we had to break the windows to get him out ," said Werner. He added two truck drivers sustained minor injuries and were transported to Innisfail Health Centre for treatment and observation.
Werner said traffic was immediately diverted through the Fas Gas parking lot. Northbound traffic was diverted to Highway 2A, then resuming on Highway 2 at the Cottonwood Road overpass. The fire chief said it wasn't until about 10:45 a.m. when the highway was fully cleaned up and reopened.
In the meantime the RCMP's Innisfail Integrated Traffic Unit is pointing to poor road conditions, which included ice and fog, as the cause of the crash.
"I would probably say the weather conditions had a huge part of it because there was probably an inch of ice on that highway when we first arrived," said Werner.
