PORT McNEILL—A Sointula couple and their two dogs escaped injury after their truck rolled off Highway 19 just south of town last week.
Tabitha Palfi and her partner were heading south to see relatives on a pre-holiday visit Dec. 10 when their GM pickup slid off the shoulder of the road, approximately a kilometre from the intersection of Campbell Way.
“We had just stopped to get coffee and were talking,” said Tabitha Palfi, who was a passenger in the vehicle. “We just looked away from the road for a second.”
The truck’s right front wheel slipped over the edge of the embankment, and it rolled once on the approximately two-metre drop before coming to rest, upright, against a tree. The couple’s two spaniels, Charlie and Sophie, were along for the trip, and Charlie was ejected from the vehicle. But Palfi and her partner, who is unidentified, were able to find him, shaken but apparently unhurt, and they hiked the short distance back to the road to flag down help.
The truck’s air bags were deployed and the roof partially collapsed in the rollover. BC Ambulance attendants responded, but the two occupants were inspected at the scene and no hospital trip was required.
Palfi said she planned to take Charlie and Sophie to a veterinarian for a general checkup, but the dogs seemed fine as she held their leashes at the side of the road and they barked vigorously at the EMTs as they approached to interview her.