A 13-year-old girl lost her life following a major collision between a heavy truck and a vehicle that occurred Sunday morning on Highway 20 in the Saint-Zotique sector, in Montérégie. Four other people, two adults and two children, remain in critical condition on Sunday evening.
Emergency services were called to the scene of the collision around 10:45 a.m. early Sunday. Two vehicles, including a heavy goods vehicle, were involved.
According to Agent Camille Savoie, spokesperson for the SQ, five people were rushed to a hospital center, “where there are currently fears for their lives,” she said. Rescue pliers even had to be used to extricate them from their vehicles.
One of the children, a 13-year-old girl, succumbed to her injuries in hospital, Agent Savoie confirmed in the evening. The adults in their 40s and the other two children were still in critical condition.
Another accident involved
According to the first information available, “the driver of a heavy-duty type truck would not have been able to stop in time in the face of slowing traffic and would have struck a sport utility vehicle in which five people were seated. , two adults and three children, ”said the Sûreté du Québec in a press release at the start of the afternoon.
This slowdown was possibly caused by another accident that occurred earlier in the day. Around 4:30 a.m. Sunday, a driver of a tanker truck veered off Highway 20 near Rivière-Beaudette. Some 40,000 liters of gasoline then escaped, local media NéoMédia reported.
Highway 20 was hampered for much of the day from kilometer 6. One out of two traffic lanes was closed eastbound, while all automobile traffic was halted westbound, according to the government platform Quebec 511.
Agents-reconstitutionists were sent to the scene, along with several investigators, in order to shed light on the tragedy.
With Alice Girard-Bossé, The Pressand The Canadian Press