BEAVER COVE—A woman suffered non-life threatening injuries and spent an hour and a half trapped in her upside-down vehicle Tuesday afternoon following a single-vehicle rollover near Beaver Cove Road.
Port McNeill Fire Department, BC Ambulance and RCMP responders all attended the scene, on the slope overlooking Western Forest Products’ Englewood log sort operation. As the Dodge 4x4 truck rested on its partially-crushed cab, rescue workers had to jack up the rear end, stabilize the vehicle and cut their way in to reach the victim and assess her injuries.
After being fitted with a cervical collar and IV drip, the woman was extracted through the back of the cab, placed on a back board and transferred to a waiting ambulance for delivery to Port McNeill Hospital.
The incident occurred around 1:30 p.m. Nov. 4, as the woman, whose name has not been released, neared Beaver Cove Road on a dirt approach road leading from a boat house.
Witness Rod Sherrell, who called in the accident, said the woman told him her front truck tire had struck a sizeable rock that had apparently rolled from the steep embankment, jarring the steering wheel from her grasp. The truck then lurched to the left and into a retaining wall made up of large rocks before flipping over onto its roof.
“I was just driving by and it took me a moment to figure out what had happened,” said Sherrell. “I was thinking, ‘What are we looking at here?’”
He checked on the victim, who was conscious and alert, then ran back down the road to notify her partner. The woman told Sherrell she had been there between five and 10 minutes, honking the truck’s horn for help, before he happened along.
Beaver Cove Road, heavily traveled in the summer by traffic to the nearby Telegraph Cove Resort, is lightly traveled in the winter.
The accident occurred while logging activity took place below. But the crash scene was blocked by from view by a screen of alders and other brush, and the noise of the workplace likely masked the sound of the horn.