Police say an impaired driver caused a crash near Vavenby yesterday which led to a dog being killed in the other vehicle.

Corporal Mike Halskov says it happened at 3:15 p.m. yesterday on Highway 5, between Vavenby and Avola.

He says the driver of a northbound beige SUV was impaired by drugs and alcohol when he hit a black SUV going southbound.

“One of several dogs” in the southbound vehicle died from the crash.

“Well certainly it affects everybody. Including those officers who attend the crash. Because they too have family, and, in many cases, pets that they care for,” he says.

“It’s just a reminder, again, that impaired driving doesn’t just happen during the holidays. It can happen at any time, anywhere, at any time of day on any day of the week. We want to encourage anybody that chooses to ingest anything that can impair their ability to drive to think twice, and find alternate means of transportation.”

Halskov says the driver who caused the crash was a man from Alberta, and was airlifted to hospital in critical condition.

He says there were several other people and dogs in the other vehicle, who suffered non-life-threatening injuries. Halskov did not immediately know where the people in that vehicle were from.

Highway 5 was fully shut down at the crash site for seven hours after the crash according to DriveBC.

Police now are looking for any witnesses to come forward, including a southbound semi-truck driver who passed the beige SUV before the crash happened. Anyone with information is asked to call Central Interior Traffic Services in Clearwater at 250-674-2237, using the file number 2021-169.

This weekend was particularly tragic for highway crashes in southern B.C.

On Saturday night, in Spallumcheen, the driver of a northbound vehicle on Highway 97A was killed after crossing the centre line and hitting another vehicle-head on.

On Friday night, two semi-trucks crashed head-on along the Trans-Canada Highway just north of Yale, with one of the semi-trucks ending up on the CN Rail tracks according to Upper Fraser Valley RCMP. Further details of that crash are unclear so far, but the highway was closed for about six hours while the wreckage was cleared.