West Vancouver police are looking at several charges after a driver entered the wrong Highway 1 on-ramp, drove several kilometres in the oncoming lane and caused a head-on collision that sent several people to hospital - all while impaired, police allege.
Investigators say the driver of a white panel van collided with a minivan carrying a family of four, leading to a chain reaction crash of a third vehicle. One of the victims, a 2½-year-old girl, was taken to hospital with a fractured shoulder, which has since been operated on. The girl's seven-yearold sister and parents were unharmed in the crash.
"The kids were properly restrained. It was just a really, really significant impact," said Const. Jeff Palmer West Vancouver police spokesman.
Though it is early in the investigation, police suspect the driver started going east in the westbound lane somewhere west of Taylor Way, possibly 21st Street or 15th Street shortly after 7 p.m. on Thursday, according to Palmer.
"We started getting a couple 9-1-1s about it and then as officers were doing an emergency response up to the highway, we get other calls that there's been a collision," Palmer said. "We're more than content to believe there's reasonable grounds to believe this was the result of impaired driving and dangerous driving."
The suspect driver, a 47-year-old Nanaimo man, has been hospitalized with a broken leg and hip.
"We've spoken to more than 30 witnesses. Still, if anybody saw anything, more information is going to be better," he said.
Calls about drivers going in the wrong direction come in from time to time, Palmer said, but most often, the driver realizes his or her mistake and turns around before it becomes a police incident.
In 2005, North Vancouver resident David Firenze was killed in a head-on collision with a drunk driver going in the wrong direction on the Trans-Canada Highway.
Anyone who witnessed Thursday's crash or the panel van before it entered the highway is asked to contact West Vancouver police at 604-925-7300.
