Eight people have been taken to hospital following several crashes on the Coquihalla south of Kamloops today.
BC Emergency Health Services spokesperson Shannon Miller says crews responded with five ambulances and an air ambulanceto crashes near the Lac Le Jeune exit.
The response came just before noon during a freak hailstorm in the area. BCEHS says one person out of the eight is in serious condition, and they say there were two crash scenes about 100 yards away from eachother.
Drivers reported the highway as been a sheet of ice during the hailstorm.
A caller named Jen tells NL News she drove through there during the storm, heading southbound back home to the Lower Mainland. She says the highway was a sheet of ice.
“The hill was really really bad, the road was super slick. Really hard to drive, it was really hard to drive, it was really poor visibility, really slippery. People in front of us were slowing down but cars in the other direction weren’t. You could just sense that something bad was about to happen. It was pretty scary,” she says.
“Just slow down, it’s not worth it. It’s not worth putting yourself and other people in danger.”
Meanwhile, DriveBC says the highway has now fully reopened following those earlier crashes, and says drivers can expect delays because of congestion.
Oh that makes me sick. Thank you for updating. Ive never seen freak conditions like that in all my life
— Cst Jody Thomas (@CstJody) June 24, 2019
