Skip to content
Join our Newsletter
  1. Home
  2. Local News

Wrong-way driver takes out cars, light standard

A man who drove a pickup truck the wrong way along Fourth Avenue downtown was taken to hospital late Thursday morning after he hit two cars, then a light standard before coming to a stop just past Brunswick Street.
Mark Nielsen

A man who drove a pickup truck the wrong way along Fourth Avenue downtown was taken to hospital late Thursday morning after he hit two cars, then a light standard before coming to a stop just past Brunswick Street.

The man, who was conscious and moving when ambulance personnel took him away on a stretcher, was having a medical issue while behind the wheel and won't face charges, Prince George RCMP said.
 
He left a trail of damage as he headed west along Fourth against the three lanes of eastbound traffic, beginning at Quebec Street when he struck an oncoming car in the middle lane.
 
"And then slowly he went around it and then slowly up the road," said Steven Perison, who saw the whole thing. "I actually thought he was going to pull over and he just kept going."

Next was Denis Cowley's car which was shoved back onto Brunswick. Cowley came to a stop just east of Brunswick when he saw the truck coming towards him.

"And he didn't stop, he just hit me," Cowley said. "And then after he hit me, he just sat in the car, so I got out of mine to phone the police and he gunned it and this is where I ended up."

Cowley said he was "a little shaky" after the collision.

Perison said the driver then went up onto the curb and nearly hit a woman walking along the sidewalk. The light standard that was taken out just about landed on her, Perison said.

"It was like stuff you see in the movies, with swinging it fairly fast into Brunwick and then taking out the light post," Perison said.

Elmo Sturgeon's car came close to being another casualty. He was about to pull into the seniors centre parking lot when he saw the pickup truck hit the building and knock over a light standard before coming to a stop at the parking lot's entrance.

"I didn't have quite the time to get off the road and then I cut over onto the sidewalk and up into the parking lot," Sturgeon said.

Sturgeon said he was not able to get a look at the driver's face because he was slumped over the steering wheel.

"I thought 'holy cow, I'm going to get hit,'" Sturgeon said. "He was going at a pretty good clip."

Cale Ruttan was inside the seniors centre when he felt a bang that "shook the building."

The driver's eyes were "all whacked out," Ruttan said.

It's not the first time someone has gone the wrong way along Fourth.

"Usually, you pass somebody going the wrong way and you blow the horn and they pull over or they go around the corner, but his eyes never moved," Cowley said of the driver. "He was just frozen."

Police, firefighters and ambulance personnel were called to the scene shortly before 11 a.m.

The city's long-awaited plan to convert Fourth Avenue into a two-way street is scheduled to be carried out this summer.