A quick moving blizzard plowed through the central Canadian plains province of Alberta this week, triggering a massive vehicle pileup on Thursday; scores of motorists were stranded near the provincial capital of Edmonton.
A car crash in the town of Leduc, on the main road between Edmonton and Calgary further south, turned into an enormous pileup of more than one hundred cars, tractor trailers, a bus and at least one truck filled with cattle. At first, emergency responders believed as many as 300 people were hurt, but the Edmonton Journal says that number was substantially lowered to about 100 people with minor to moderate injuries. Most people were treated at the scene, when authorities could finally reach them, but 22 people needed to be hospitalized.
The blizzard was so blinding that Edmonton police briefly closed the entire highway that rings the city, called Anthony Henday Drive. Derek Fildebrandt was on a bus near the freeway, enroute to an Edmonton conference, when he got stuck in the wreck and tweeted his adventures:
Hitch hiking my way to Edmonton via Wetaskwin on country roads. Found a Tim Hortons. There is a God.
— Derek Fildebrandt (@Dfildebrandt) March 21, 2013
Fildebrandt told the National Post as he slowly passed through the huge accident scene, there were damaged vehicles every 200 yards or so: “It was just endless wreckage.”
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‘Endless Wreckage’: Blizzard Triggers Huge Canadian Traffic Pileup
