Twenty-five years later, Kirk Walstedt still has “dreams” about the Sept. 3, 1999 crash, on Highway 401 that killed eight people and left 45 others injured.
Described as one of the worst traffic pileups in Canadian history, the crash involved 87 vehicles lost in fog on the highway near Manning Road, roughly 10 kilometres east of the Windsor, Ont., airport.
“It’s a day I’ll never forget,” said Walstedt, a practising lawyer at the time who’s now deputy mayor of Lakeshore.
“I was just here at home going out to feed my peacocks and I could hear the crashing and banging of something going on down at 401 — there was a heavy fog bank over 401.”
Walstedt, who lived about a kilometre from the accident scene, said he rushed down there to see what was going on, adding he met his brother and father who got there ahead of him.
According to Walstedt, what he saw was “a terrible scene,” adding “the accident was still going on because people were driving from the clearing into the fog bank and they were just piling into each other… It was almost like a horror movie scene.”
Following the crash, authorities said no fog warnings were issued due to a malfunction at the Windsor airport observation station.
According to Walstedt, what he saw was “a terrible scene,” adding “the accident was still going on because people were driving from the clearing into the fog bank and they were just piling into each other… It was almost like a horror movie scene.”
Following the crash, authorities said no fog warnings were issued due to a malfunction at the Windsor airport observation station.
According to Walstedt, what he saw was “a terrible scene,” adding “the accident was still going on because people were driving from the clearing into the fog bank and they were just piling into each other… It was almost like a horror movie scene.”
Following the crash, authorities said no fog warnings were issued due to a malfunction at the Windsor airport observation station.
Walstedt recalled trying to help as much as he could.
“We were just pulling people out of cars, some we could get, some we couldn’t. I was putting them in the back of my pickup and we were taking them out to a tree out in my dad’s field — that kind of a triage area where everybody knew where their people were,” he said.
“I have dreams about it every once in a while because there were so many people ….there was a number that were screaming ‘get us out’ and we couldn’t because the accident was continuing … it was terrible.”
Walstedt recalled trying to help as much as he could.
“We were just pulling people out of cars, some we could get, some we couldn’t. I was putting them in the back of my pickup and we were taking them out to a tree out in my dad’s field — that kind of a triage area where everybody knew where their people were,” he said.
“I have dreams about it every once in a while because there were so many people ….there was a number that were screaming ‘get us out’ and we couldn’t because the accident was continuing … it was terrible.”
Walstedt recalled trying to help as much as he could.
“We were just pulling people out of cars, some we could get, some we couldn’t. I was putting them in the back of my pickup and we were taking them out to a tree out in my dad’s field — that kind of a triage area where everybody knew where their people were,” he said.
“I have dreams about it every once in a while because there were so many people ….there was a number that were screaming ‘get us out’ and we couldn’t because the accident was continuing … it was terrible.”
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