A section of the Alaska Highway was closed for five hours Friday while the RCMP investigated a two-vehicle crash.
At around 10 a.m. Friday, a 48-year-old woman driving a Chevy Cavalier was hit by a southbound Dodge van on the Alaska Highway. A few minutes earlier, the Cavalier was involved in another accident, rolling backwards and hitting another car in the Kopper King parking lot.
The 61-year-old woman driving the Dodge van, which bore a Mitzi’s Closet logo on its door, was sent to the hospital with broken bones. The other driver was not seriously injured.
The Cavalier driver is believed to have been intoxicated, according to the RCMP and witnesses who saw both accidents.
“(Before the highway collision) the woman’s car stalled and rolled back into another vehicle,” said Kopper King manager Rod Malchow, who saw the incident.
“The woman thought the guy behind her rear-ended her and she got out of her car and gave him heck.”
That’s when the driver, suspecting she was drunk, phoned the RCMP. A Kopper King employee also ran out to get her licence plate and report she was driving under the influence.
Immediately after that incident, the woman got into the Cavalier, stalled it and then pulled out of the parking lot extremely fast, said Malchow.
The collision required the RCMP to bring in a traffic expert to investigate the scene.
Closing the highway for five hours even though there wasn’t a fatality is routine, said RCMP Sgt. Don Rogers.
Anyone with information about the accidents is asked to phone the RCMP at 667-5555.