A young driver suspected of having had impaired abilities and her passenger escaped with minor injuries after falling 15 meters from a vehicle to land in the Saguenay River, in Chicoutimi.
The road trip occurred Tuesday around 10 p.m. in the Motel Panoramique sector, on Saguenay Boulevard.
According to the Saguenay Police Department, the vehicle was traveling westbound towards Jonquière when the motorist in his early twenties lost control after overtaking.
The vehicle then hit a snow bank which had the effect of a launching pad, explains spokesman Carl Tremblay.
He crossed the guardrail, then rolled over in a 15-meter ravine and ended up in the stream, on the roof.
“When the police arrived, the two occupants had already left. We are talking about minor injuries. We asked for the assistance of firefighters and a specialized trailer to extricate the vehicle from its unfortunate position,” said Mr. Tremblay.
The two occupants were taken to hospital, but there is no fear for their lives. The police noted that the driver gave off a strong odor of alcohol and requested a blood test to support their suspicions.
Other incident
Earlier in the evening, SPS officers had come across another impaired driver.
Patrol officers were parked on the edge of Monfort Street, around 8:30 p.m., when they were grazed by a motorist who narrowly avoided a collision with their vehicle, says Mr. Tremblay.
The police intercepted him. It was then that they noticed that he “gave off a strong smell of alcohol” and had red eyes. He was taken to the police station where he blew nearly four times the legal blood alcohol limit.
The suspect has been released and will appear in court in the coming weeks.