Chaos on the Coquihalla

Taylor Cox had a life changing experience last weekend after witnessing one of several accidents that occurred on Coquihalla Highway.

While travelling back home to Merritt from Kamloops at about noon on Sunday, the 20-year-old Merrittonian and her two companions found themselves engulfed an intense rainstorm.

Cox was driving southbound and uphill in the middle lane of the highway at 80 km/hr a few kilometres past the Inks Lake brake check when her vehicle was nearly plowed into.

A woman driving a red vehicle on the northbound side of the highway lost control of her car and went off the road.

The vehicle hit the median ditch and rolled before sliding into the southbound lanes, missing Cox’s vehicle by what she said appeared to be four feet.

“We were driving along and then all of a sudden I just saw her come from the northbound lane and she hit the centre ditch, and there was just grass and water flying, and I just screamed,” Cox said.

Cox said she saw the vehicle flip.

“[The vehicle] went straight up in the air and I started to slow down and she hit the ground and I realized she was going up for another one and I just threw [my vehicle from] fifth to second gear,” Cox said. “I could have blown my motor or stalled, but that’s the only thing I could think of doing,” Cox said.

The vehicle came to a rest in the centre lane, and the crash halted traffic.

Cox and her two friends pulled over, got out of their car in the pouring rain and ran to pull the female driver from the wreckage.

“We thought we were going to be pulling someone mangled or dead out of there,” Cox said.

Cox said they opened the passenger door and saw a middle aged woman already attempting to crawl out of the car.

She was the lone occupant of the crashed vehicle and appeared to have just a few scratches, but Cox wasn’t sure if the woman had suffered any internal damage from the crash.

Cox said the woman was screaming and crying when they got her out of the wreckage.

“I’ve never seen someone shaking that hard.”

Fuel and glass were everywhere, and the crashed car was steaming.

Cox called 911, and firefighters and paramedics arrived shortly afterwards.

She said firefighters told her the woman was OK.

“This woman needed our help and that’s all I could think about,” Cox said.

Instincts kicked in, prompting Cox to get out of her car and check on the woman.

“I wouldn’t be able to live with myself not knowing, “Cox said.

“If she [had] died I would have been thinking I could have done something.”

Cox said the woman told her she was travelling about 110 km/hr in the rain and hail when she decided to slow down.

“She said she just barely touched her brakes, which sent her flying,” Cox said.

Cox said she still thinks about what could have happened, noting that had the vehicle hit hers, they would have been slammed into the concrete median along the right side of highway.

“That’s been going over in my head,” Cox said. “I know that I did everything that I could have and I did everything right, it’s just so scary to realize that Sunday could have been a different day, a completely different day.”

Cox said this experience has taught her to appreciate life.

“As youth a lot of the time we think we’re invincible, but that’s really not true.”