By Jillian Austin
A head-on highway crash between an ambulance and a car has left the communities of Souris and Melita reeling.
A 54-year-old Souris man was pronounced dead at the scene Thursday night, and two Melita paramedics were sent to hospital with serious injuries. The patient being transported in the ambulance at the time of the crash is in stable condition.
“It always shakes the town up when someone local is involved in any sort of accident,” said Souris Mayor Darryl Jackson. “It’s just a real tragic situation.”
The crash happened Thursday around 6 p.m., about five kilometres north of Souris on Highway 250. An ambulance was travelling north, transporting a patient from Melita to Brandon in a non-emergency call. Police said a southbound Kia Spectra crossed the centre line into the path of the ambulance.
The driver of the ambulance was taken to a Winnipeg hospital with critical injuries. By Friday afternoon, he was listed in guarded condition in the surgical intensive care unit at Health Sciences Centre, said Louise Stitt, emergency medical services manager with the Assiniboine Regional Health Authority.
The other paramedic was released from hospital Friday morning.
RCMP said speed and alcohol are not considered factors in the crash. They continue to investigate.
Melita Mayor Bob Walker said the community is extremely saddened by the news.
“I was notified immediately by one of the families involved that they just got word… It was a shock,” he said. “Ours is a volunteer ambulance service.”
The emergency vehicle involved in the crash was the only ambulance stationed in Melita. The ARHA has provided the town with a spare unit.
Stitt was one of the paramedics who responded to the collision, driving in from her home in Oak Lake.
“It’s never an easy thing to respond to your own staff, or for the staff from Rivers, Souris, and Hartney that were on scene to respond to their co-workers,” she said. “We recognize that it is part of our job… At the same time, it’s one situation that we’d just as soon not have to deal with terribly often.
“I have to put my armour up to ensure my personal feelings don’t extend past my ability to provide the best care possible.”
The ARHA is providing critical incident stress counselling for those involved.
“You like to think that you’re somewhat invulnerable because, you have all these lights and all this metal and so on around you, that people will see you, notice you, and you won’t be in harm’s way… but you know bad things happen to good people sometimes, and we have to take it in stride,” Stitt said.
The ambulance would have been travelling at a normal rate of speed and without flashing lights or a siren, as it was a non-emergency transport, Stitt said.
The patient being transferred was on a stretcher at the time of the collision, Stitt said, and the attendant would have been seated on a “squad bench.” There are provisions for the attendant to be belted in when not providing direct patient care. Stitt did not know if the attendant was wearing a seatbelt at the time of the collision.
Jodi Possia, chairwoman of the Paramedic Association of Manitoba, said the incident is a reminder to the public to be cautious near emergency vehicles.
“We want the public to remain vigilant when they’re passing and approaching emergency vehicles on our roadways,” she said. “We have paramedics who are standing in the middle of intersections and are on the sides of busy highways across Manitoba. It’s extremely dangerous. We’re very vulnerable in those instances, but we’re trying to be as safe as we possibly can.”
On Monday, a Winnipeg paramedic was injured after being hit by a suspected drunk driver.
“We now have three paramedics in the last week that are recovering from injuries sustained in motor-vehicle collisions. Our hearts go out to the family who are mourning the loss of a loved one in a tragic incident,” Possia said. “It absolutely is terrible.”
