(Coaldale & District Emergency Services)

By Justin Goulet

Train/truck collision, EMS calls and residential fire alarm keep Coaldale crews busy Tuesday

Dec 2, 2020 | 12:16 PM

COALDALE, AB – It was a very busy Tuesday for Coaldale emergency crews.

Late Tuesday evening, at around 6:30 p.m., Coaldale & District Emergency Services responded to a collision between a train and vehicle at Range Road 20-5 and Highway 3 between Coaldale and Lethbridge.

“There was a pickup truck with a goose-neck, flat-deck trailer that was heading southbound on Range Road 20-5 that drove on to the tracks and was struck by an eastbound train,” said Coaldale Fire Chief Kevin McKeown.

He added the vehicle hit a power pole as a result of the collision with the train.

“[This] caused significant damage to the power pole and there were power lines down with that as well,” McKeown told LNN.

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He said he did not receive notice of anyone losing power because of this, although Fortis did respond to the scene.

The male driver of the damaged truck was assessed on scene by EMS and released. However, he later went to Chinook Regional Hospital with undetermined injuries.

McKeown could not speak to the current condition of the male driver.

Additionally, McKeown said the intersection at the train tracks at Highway 3 and Range Road 20-5 was closed for a few hours as crews investigated and responded to the collision.

The train was moved at about 9:30 p.m.

“We had to deal with getting the truck and trailer off of the power pole and getting that towed,” he said.

BUSY TUESDAY

McKeown said in total on Tuesday, Coaldale crews responded to four calls, including the train/truck collision.

“The first two calls came in during the day and they were both medical first response assist with AHS EMS,” he said.

Just a few minutes after crews responded to the evening collision, McKeown said they received notice of a residential fire alarm.

“That turned out to be a false alarm, so crews were definitely busy, and we had people running all over the place last night,” he said.

“Our last couple of weeks have been extremely busy and we’re just about at our call volume that we were at at the end of 2019, so we’ve almost already met our call volume of 2019, so we expect to be significantly over this year.”