Below-freezing overnight temperatures and icy driving conditions have led to a lengthening list of vehicle of collisions in southern Manitoba this week.
On Thursday, workers were trying to haul a tractor-trailer out of a ditch adjacent to a Trans-Canada Highway bridge near St. François Xavier west of Winnipeg after a collision Wednesday, temporarily closing the highway.
A 31-year-old man driving west in a pickup truck at about 7:15 a.m. crossed over the median on the icy bridge and collided with the eastbound semi-truck.
The transport-truck driver, a 23-year-old man, tried to avoid the collision but hit the ditch, and part of the vehicle ended up in the Assiniboine River.
Both drivers were taken to hospital with serious injuries, RCMP said.
Earlier Wednesday, a vehicle headed south on an icy Highway 59 bridge lost control, causing a 19-vehicle chain-reaction pileup. A 55-year-old man from Tyndall was killed.
Selkirk RCMP and responders from nearby fire departments and ambulance services raced to the bridge, located near Springhill Winter Sports Park in the Rural Municipality of East St. Paul, just northeast of Winnipeg, at about 6:30 a.m.
Officers located the man dead on the road. RCMP spokeswoman Michelle Lissel said Wednesday investigators are still trying to determine which vehicle the victim had been driving and whether he was thrown from it in the collision or got out on his own.
Other drivers were treated for minor injuries.
Early Tuesday, one person was taken to hospital after a six-vehicle collision on the south Perimeter Highway.
Winnipeg police officers were sent to the area of St. Mary’s Road and the Perimeter just after 7 a.m. Police said the road was “extremely slippery” because of below-freezing overnight temperatures.
The initial crash was followed by a series of slower crashes, as the conditions made it difficult to stop. One person was taken to hospital in stable condition.
fpcity@freepress.mb.ca