Not Again!

Here we go again was my first thought when I heard the page out for an MVI near the 17 Mile House involving a logging truck and wires down. People were still talking about the logging truck crash in October and now another one just a few hundred meters from the previous incident. On arrival we found that at least this time it was only phone and cable lines that were down and not hydro which made things a little easier. The driver was out of his rig and suffered only a slight injury to his head which was quickly attended to by EHS. The truck and all its load lay spread across both lanes of traffic and into the ditch. There was no way anyone was going to get through and as it was on the Sooke side of Gillepsie Road, there was no way around unless you choose the long route through Port Renfrew. Based on past experience, I figured it would be at least three hours before we could get even one lane of traffic through. Thus the giant traffic jam started. Crews set up at the Fuse Restaurant and began turning people around. At the accident scene, firefighters controlled the leaking fluids and then began walking down the line to notify those trapped in traffic that it would be some time before they could pass. Even the police officer on his way to work in Victoria that flashed his badge and said he had to get past could not get through (turns out he did not have a flying car) Part way down the line I ran into the owner of HHS Blasting who told me he had an 8 ton crane truck trapped on the other side of the incident and would it be of any use. This was certainly worth looking into. Turns out the crane would work and they were able to move the truck and trailer off the road. Now at least one lane of traffic could flow. With the assistance of another logging truck and backhoe from Mainroad, the logs were either pushed off the road or loaded onto the truck and taken away. A quick scrape of the roadway with the backhoe and washdown with R-2 and the road was now passable in both directions and it only took about three hours (good guess eh). The tow truck hadn't even shown up yet. If we had to wait for it, people would have been in line for 5 or 6 hours. So thanks to a combined effort and the HHS crane, hundreds, if not thousands of people were able to get home in half the time it would have taken without the help. As for the cause, it appears that a piece of the truck may have broken causing the load to shift. The driver was not speeding from witness accounts, so it appears to be an actual accident. I suppose the RCMP and Commercial Vehicle Inspector will have the final say on that but sometimes stuff just happens.