Three RCMP officers were taken to hospital with minor injuries after a logging truck hit a police vehicle and spilled the logs it was carrying onto a second police vehicle on a remote road near Lake Cowichan.
Volunteer fire departments from Mesachie Lake and Port Renfrew responded to the incident, which occurred 23 kilometres south of Mesachie Lake shortly after 8 a.m.
The RCMP said officers were driving southbound on Pacific Marine Road to enforce an injunction against old-growth logging protests in the Fairy Creek area when a logging truck travelling the opposite direction struck the vehicle.
The logging truck nearly pushed the first vehicle off the road, and the collision caused the truck to spill the load of logs onto the road and partially onto a second vehicle, said Kevin Smith, fire chief for Mesachie Lake Volunteer Fire Department.
Three officers were taken to hospital in Duncan with minor injuries, he said.
“Everybody walked away from what could have been just an incredibly horrible event,” Smith said.
It’s about the fifth collision this year on the logging road, which averages one fatality annually, he said. It’s a tough section of road that sees a lot of traffic and has no cellphone coverage, making emergency response difficult, Smith said.
Many people come to the area to drive quickly and dangerously, knowing the nearest police officers are in Sooke or Lake Cowichan, Smith said. “We call it the Wild Wild West.”
Nearby old-growth logging protests haven’t significantly affected the amount of traffic or number of collisions on the road, Smith said.
