Krista Thomas, whose son Harris was involved in a motor vehicle accident on Highway 5 on May 11, 2023, is sharing her family’s experience on Highway 5 in hopes of raising awareness to improve safety.
“The highway is a dangerous place. Speed and distraction are causing accidents constantly,” Thomas wrote, sharing her story with Black Press, and social media. “I cannot say that I have never sped or been distracted while driving, but I do have respect for others who I share the road with. I know that my actions could jeopardize someone else’s life if I make a poor decisions while driving.”
Thomas posted the family’s accident story on June 1, 2023, which was the date of her son Harris’s 19th birthday.
On the morning of May 11, Thomas said she and her husband Scott were woken by the phone call from Harris’s friend Keylan, who told them they had just been hit by a semi-truck. He was able to get out of the truck they were in, but he wasn’t able to get Harris out and he wouldn’t wake up.
“The boys were on their way home from working in Valemount. They had pulled over and parked to switch drivers 42 kilometres north of home (Clearwater). They had switched places and were about to start out again when they were hit from behind by a semi-truck.”
Their truck, a Chevy Colorado pulling a tent-trailer, was pushed off the highway through a power pole and hit by the semi and its empty car-carrier trailer. Thomas said they came to rest approximately 50 metres into a field, with the semi carrying on for another 200 metres into the field.
“They had been parked on the side of the highway, on a straight stretch. It was approximately 3:30 a.m. and the roads were dry and bare. They should have been safe.”
Thomas said when they arrived at the scene there was debris all over the highway, a very mangled vehicle found by emergency crews off the road in a field and a semi off in the distance also in the field, and flashing lights everywhere.
“The highway rescue team had to cut the truck to free Harris. He was alive, was able to answer simple questions and knew who we were.”
Thomas’ son was carefully loaded into the ambulance and taken to the Clearwater hospital.
“Keylan came with us to the hospital as well. Both boys were checked out and it was determined that Harris needed a higher level of care and was loaded back into the ambulance and sent to Kamloops hospital,” she said.
“Keylan had a muscular strain throughout his body. He remembers what happened and the aftermath, thinking his friend is dead because he is trapped unconscious in a crushed vehicle that a semi-truck had just hit … going highway speed.”
Once Harris arrived at Royal Inland Hospital, his mom said he was taken for CT scans and X-rays to find that he had three fractured vertebrae in his lower back and one fractured vertebrae in his neck, a fractuared right wrist, cuts with glass in them on his forehead and right eyelid and a cut on the back of his head.
“After 16 hours of being in Emergency, he was able to come home. By some miracle he was able to walk out of the ER that night.”
Three weeks after the accident, Thomas said Harris was slowly recovering, using a cane to walk and spending 50 per cent of the day lying down to keep the pressure off his back and the pain down. The cuts had mostly healed, but the scars will always be there, she said.
“It is amazing that the boys are alive and were able to come home the day of the accident. Their bodies will heal slowly, and Harris will get his truck replaced, but his life, Keylan’s life, us as their parents, and their sisters and brothers, our lives are not the same. No one is ever prepared for this, and there is an overwhelming lost feeling, with so many questions and not knowing who or where to turn to.”
Thomas said her son’s collision was a preventable accident, adding that it should be safe to pull off the highway to take a break and drive to and from work.
“I should be mad and hate the truck driver who hit them, but I can’t be. His life will also never be the same. I would assume his family was also awakened in the middle of the night with news that he had been in an accident.”
Thomas said she hopes the driver will learn from his mistake. She also hopes those who read their story will also be more mindful when driving.
“Speed kills, and if you’re lucky enough to survive speed also really really hurts. I hope by reading this it will make you think twice about passing when it’s not safe, taking a few minutes longer to get where you’re going rather than speeding to get there. Nobody should ever have to make that phone call or receive it. Please slow down and enjoy the drive.”
Sgt. Grant Simpson, detachment commander for Clearwater RCMP, concurred with Thomas’s account of the accident, noting the semi ran over the tent trailer from behind, and it was the force of that which pushed the truck a far distance into the field, also hitting a power pole.
“I understand her concerns. We all should feel safe on our roadways, but the catastrophic collisions we’ve seen over the past few years have slowly taken this from us. It’s also concerning (to me and I’m sure others) that a large number of these collisions involve commercial vehicles.”