PENHOLD – Four occupants in a motor vehicle that was heading north of town along Hwy. 2A were lucky to escape serious injury during the night of Aug. 5 after their car struck a moose.
Sean Pendergast, deputy fire chief of the Penhold Fire Department, said 12 firefighters with three apparatus were dispatched on Aug. 5 at about 10:54 p.m. to attend a motor vehicle collision involving a juvenile moose on the northbound lane of Hwy. 2A, about a kilometre and a half north of the intersection of highways 2A and 42.
Pendergast said when firefighters arrived at the scene, they noted the vehicle, which had sustained extensive front end damage to the driver’s side bumper area, had four occupants. He said firefighters noted all of the airbags had been deployed and the four occupants were treated for minor injuries and released on scene.
Pendergast added the quartet did not appear to be traumatized over the incident.
“I don’t believe they were, no,” said Pendergast. “They were otherwise OK. We check into that kind of stuff on all our calls that we attend.”
He said the moose was deceased at the scene, and was a “pretty small” juvenile-sized animal. Pendergast said Alberta Transportation was later called to remove the deceased moose from the highway.
“We don’t typically get too many calls about (moose) because we don’t have a large stretch of highway at high speeds, so we only have a couple of kilometres of coverage anyways for our department,” he said. “It is pretty rare for us to do animal strikes.”
Pendergast said the northbound lane of Hwy. 2A was closed for an hour and half for the firefighters' response.
