Car in the Serpentine River

This morning Kerry had a 9am appointment in Richmond. We left Richmond around 9:30 driving south on Highway 99 heading for the tunnel. I got on the highway at Westminster Highway. There's an HOV lane and I decided not to drive in it but stayed in the lane beside. I glanced in my rear view mirror and saw 2 cars flying up in the passing lane on my other side. I even commented so my husband could have at look at how fast the cars were travelling and where's a cop when you need one.

Actually there was an SUV pulled over at the Burnette overpass and both these cars slowed down to the 90km speed limit thinking it might have been a cop but it wasn't so off they went again. Both black cars, a BMW and a Honda. Women driving both of them. May have been racing each other, darting in and out of traffic. They got to the tunnel way ahead of me and I didn't see them again.

Normally I would have got off Highway 99 at Highway 91 and back to Cloverdale but we decided to drive into White Rock to see my father which meant continuing on to the 32nd Avenue exit. As we came around the bend at the Serpentine River there were a lot of cars pulled over on both sides of the highway. I thought it might have been a work crew but I didn't see any road work going on. A bunch of people were looking down in the river. Kerry said a car was in the river and that the guard rail was smashed. As we continued toward the King George Highway exit a fire truck was racing down Highway 99 on the other side. I watched it in my rear view mirror and it crossed the median and got onto our lane of the highway. As I continued south I saw an ambulance coming down the highway and just before I exited at 32nd Avenue I saw another fire truck joining the action.

On the news tonight I heard that a woman was in the car that crashed into the Serpentine River. In her 20's. She was in the river for an hour and a half. That usually indicates someone is dead when it takes that long to rescue. Apparently the rescue crews were able to revive her and she was airlifted by helicopter to hospital. I haven't heard any further updates. The police said speed was a factor in the crash.

When I told Kerry about it he asked if it was a black Honda. So maybe it was the same woman we saw earlier. We only caught a glimpse of her as she flew past before we got to the Deas Island Tunnel. We think she may have had dark hair.

Here's a link to the news story.