On 25th anniversary of deadly Highway 401 crash, Lakeshore resident recalls 'horror movie scene'
Pileup involving 87 vehicles killed 8 people and left 45 injured
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.
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."
'A very, very tough day' for first responders
Tecumseh Mayor Gary McNamara, deputy mayor at the time of the crash, said he was on his way to work when he heard about the accident.
He also recalled the fog was "very heavy."
"All of a sudden I get a call and it's from our fire department here that they're heading out to the 401," McNamara told CBC News.
"It was a very, very tough day for a lot of first responders that were there, seeing people trapped in vehicles, dying in their vehicles, it was gut wrenching for our folks and many of our first responding police, fire and EMS."
McNamara said it took a long time for them to come to grips with the tragedy.
"The young lady that they couldn't bring out of the car … how do you explain that to a family member that you couldn't do anything? I really felt for those first responders."
McNamara said his son is one of those individuals in the fire service who helps with mentoring through peer support, adding some of the stories that evolved from that day 25 years ago are still fresh in the minds of those who responded to the disaster.
The aftermath
It took days to remove vehicles and reopen the road, which had to be repaved. The Ministry of Transportation installed rumble strips on the newly paved shoulders. The disaster prompted the government to widen the highway to six lanes.
The Canadian Automobile Association — which had previously identified a strip of Highway 401 further west of the crash site as "Carnage Alley" — hired traffic experts to study the section. They called for an additional traffic lane per direction and a concrete dividing barrier.
A coroner's inquest into the crash made 25 recommendations to improve safety, including adding photo radar and increased traffic enforcement.
With files from Dale Molnar