Up front: Cowichan farmers search for answers to elk invasion On stage: Angry Cowichan chief demands river control changes
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Friday, October 19, 2012
Eyewitness leaps to help Malahat crash: Money can’t replace loss of little Sarina Top’s mom, but Chemainiac Myles Vaux is doing what he can Peter W. Rusland
News Leader Pictorial
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yles Vaux had a feeling of dread when he got out of his car on the Malahat late Sunday morning. When the former Chemainus ¿re¿ghter reached the fresh accident scene ¿ve vehicles ahead, his hunch was right. It was something Myles Vaux has launched a akin to a war scene. fundraising drive to help the “There were two bodies six-year-old Nanaimo girl who in the middle of the road. lost her mother in Sunday’s horOne was a young man who riÄc crash on the Malahat. is still alive, the other was a female who’d been ejected. A Honda SUV was split in half. The fellow in a (pick-up truck) was conscious, but pinned in with his wife. “When you walk up to the scene, it’s very very quiet. I heard some crying; it was very surreal. I’ve seen some bad scenes, but this was really bad.” Reality returned through screams for help from Sarina Top, 6, trapped inside the shredded Honda. She and Vaux didn’t know her mom, Pheat Top, 30, was dead, along with two other Honda passengers. A male from that SUV was in critical condition at press time Thursday. But Vaux simply focused on helping the traumatized child wearing “a pink, puffy jacket and a little shirt. Her shoes may have been knocked off from the impact,” said a shaken Vaux, 30. “I don’t know how she survived — she was hanging upside down in one of the seats in the Honda. I’ve never seen a little girl who looked so scared in my life. “All you could hear was her crying, and her feet where running but in the air. She had blood spots from other people on her face. To see that little girl hanging upside down crying for her mom isn’t something you want to see.” Malahat ¿re chief Rob Patterson helped him cut the Nanaimo tot from her life-saving seatbelt. Patterson praised his selÀess efforts. more on A6
Andrew Leong
FireÄghter Norm Swift was among the crew members of Cowichan Bay Volunteer Fire Rescue who hosted an educational Äre prevention tour at their hall for a group of kindergarteners, teachers and parents of Bench Elementary School on Wednesday.
Lobby for more medians intensiÄes in wake of triple fatality Not enough? Three more kilometres of medians on the way, but not at NASCAR corner Peter W. Rusland
News Leader Pictorial
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edian the whole Malahat now, before more people die. That’s what Cowichanians are telling B.C.’s transport minister Mary Polak in the wake of Sunday’s cross-over, triple tragedy — the Warm Land’s worst in years — on a rainsoaked stretch without medians. “Show us you’re willing to step out from behind the curtain, and hear what we and the ¿rst responders have to say,” local median lobbyist Chelsey Dollman told Polak, who was unavailable for comment yesterday. Dollman explained Sunday’s deaths of three Nanaimo women — at what Malahat’s ¿re chief has called NASCAR Corner — may have been prevented if $8 million in concrete-barrier work, promised last year by then-minister Blair Lekstrom, had been fast-tracked. But ministry staff said NASCAR Corner section isn’t in the current median-upgrade plans,
IT’S BACK
though it could be added in future. “We always review safety, and identify our next priorities,” said Patrick Livolsi, transport’s south-coast regional director. Dollman’s priority was to see most of the Malahat get barriers before what she called the most dangerous time of the year, forecasting rain, hydroplaning, fog, ice and snow. “It’s really scary, and such a sad, sad story about these families ripped apart,” Dollman said of Sunday’s wreck. She has a good rapport with Lekstrom, but not, as yet, with Polak who hadn’t answered her emails. “If the medians had been there, it would have been a one-vehicle accident, or at least minimal damage,” said Dollman The head-on was still under investigation. “More construction should have happened by this point. I’m concerned it’ll be put on the back burner until the May election. I don’t think they’ll be doing construction until late spring.” She was right. Livolsi said two of a planned ¿ve kilometres of medians are done. The remaining three need
complex hydro- and geotechnical designs before January bidding toward spring completion. “We’re proceeding as fast as we can,” he said. Still, he said staff is willing to discuss Malahat ¿re chief Rob Patterson’s cross-over concern list. Sunday’s tragedy moved NASCAR Corner way up on that list. “It de¿nitely needs barricades,” Patterson said of the merge lane north of Whittaker Road. He applauded ministry work already done, but said it’s not enough. “There are far more hazardous areas to be medianed between South Shawnigan Lake Road to McCurdy.” Like Split-Rock curve, and the Malahat Village area by the Petrocan. Myles Vaux, who attended the crash, agreed. “People just have to slow down but medians should be in place (NASCAR). They’ve spent so much money on useless barriers where we don’t need them like on the side of the highway.” Livolsi con¿rmed acceleration/deceleration lanes are respectively planned for the village, Shawnigan Lake Road turn-off, and Finlayson Arm Road.
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