A crash on Raleigh Road just north of Winnipeg put five people in hospital and left debris from two pickup trucks scattered over a large area on Wednesday night, RCMP say.
Witnesses told RCMP that a grey Nissan pickup and a grey Dodge Ram 1500 were driving erratically at high speed before the crash, and appeared to be racing or chasing each other, police said in a news release.
The pickups crashed just south of Pritchard Farm Road, in East St. Paul, shortly after 8 p.m.
The 29-year-old man who was driving the Nissan and the occupants of the Ram — a 23-year-old woman and three men, ages 37, 30 and 26 — were all taken to hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries, police said.
No arrests have been made, RCMP said.
Stacey Corden, whose backyard is alongside Raleigh Street near the crash site, said her boys were playing in the back when she heard the crash from the front yard.
“We just heard this huge screech and crash. Like, it was incredibly close,” she said.
She grabbed her phone, called 911 and ran over, certain those involved would need help.
“Your stomach sinks, because I — when you saw those cars, I am like, there is no way anybody survived that,” she said. “That was my initial thought.”
There weren’t any fatalities, but there were multiple people at the scene, including a man whose shoes had flown off, she said.
One person was yelling “He’s trying to get away!” The man who was yelling went over to a treed area, where Corden saw him hitting someone with what looked like a stick, she said.
She thinks the same man was later yelling at a woman and a man who’d been in the crash and were sitting near the road.
“He was yelling at that guy and girl sitting, [saying] ‘Are you happy now? I told you this would happen! Look what you did!’ Kind of stuff like that,” Corden said.
The crash happened near baseball diamonds and a popular walking path, Corden said.
“I walk that path almost every day,” she said.
Neighbour Darin Dieleman said he didn’t witness the crash, but he looked at the crash site later.
It’s usually a quiet neighbourhood, he said, but lots of people use the walking path and the sports fields, and he’s glad the diamonds weren’t being used Wednesday.
“It’s scary,” he said. “Your typical weeknight, that place is loaded up with cars and families and kids everywhere.”
Police ask anyone with information or video surveillance to call Selkirk RCMP at 204-482-1222, Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1-800-222-8477, or submit a secure tip online at manitobacrimestoppers.com.