The crash between happened Friday afternoon when a pickup truck going north on Highway 63 pulled out to pass another vehicle, colliding with another pickup travelling south.
"There was a significant fire as a result of the impact," said Const. Christina Wilkins of Fort McMurray RCMP.
Passing motorists pulled a teenaged girl from the pickup that had been passing, say police. She was airlifted to a hospital in Edmonton, but died a few hours later from her injuries.
The highway is a busy route stretching north of Edmonton to Fort McMurray and north to the oilsands, where thousands of people work and tonnes of material and equipment moves daily.
Between 2001 and 2005, more than 1,000 crashes killed 25 people and injured 257 others on the highway.
In 2006, after years of public pressure, the Alberta government announced that it would twin a 240-kilometre stretch of the road. As of October 2009, 16 kilometres had been twinned.
In 2011, the provincial government and Athabasca County invested $1.3 million to hire more emergency responders to cover the route.
Pastor, two children identified among seven victims in deadly Highway 63 crash
APRIL 29, 2012
EDMONTON - A Fort McMurray pastor, his wife and their young son have been identified as victims of the fiery, head-on crash on Highway 63 that killed seven people on Friday afternoon.
Shannon Wheaton was a family ministries pastor at the Family Christian Centre in Fort McMurray. A family member said Wheaton, his wife Trena, and two young sons were all in the same vehicle when it crashed. His two-year-old son died in the crash while a three-year-old son remains in hospital, a family member said.
Friends of the Wheaton family, Mark and Courtney Penney of Fort McMurray, were riding with them in the southbound truck that collided head-on with another vehicle that pulled into their lane. Courtney Penney, who was pregnant, died in the crash, a friend said, while her 28-year-old husband is hospitalized in serious but stable condition.
All three occupants of the northbound vehicle died.
The Family Christian Centre is providing grief counselling for families that were affected, said Rev. Edwin Rideout, the centre’s lead pastor. Rideout said Wheaton had served with him for five years in Springdale, Nfld, before joining him in Fort McMurray in 2010.
“He was one of the most and generous individuals I have ever known,” Rideout said. “His passion for God, the church and the community was exceptional. I considered him my son on ministry.”
The Family Christian Centre where Wheaton worked, a Pentecostal Assembly, has scheduled a service on Sunday at 11:30 a.m.
Wheaton also spent three years as a children’s pastor at the Windsor Pentecostal Church in Grand Falls-Windsor, Newfoundland, the province he was originally from.
“Pastor Shannon was very family-oriented and did his ministry with children from the depths of his heart,” said Pastor Robert Parsons. “He loved the kids ... and the kids loved him.”
Parsons said he heard about the accident early Saturday morning, and word spread quickly through the church community in that province.
“Many, many calls are coming in from our congregation,” Parsons said, adding that the sorrow if bring felt throughout the Pentecostal ministry. “Because he was associated with our fellowship it affects the Pentecostal Church in the entire province of Newfoundland and Labrador.”
The small community of Frederickton, N.L., where Wheaton is from, is reeling from the tragedy, said his childhood friend.
“The reality has slowly set in,” said Robin Wheaton, who is not related to the pastor. “He was a good guy, an honest guy. Everybody is in shock.”
The pastor’s parents still live in Frederickton and were always deeply religious, he said.
April Anstey, a friend of Courtney Penney, remembered her as “a quiet soul, but her heart was huge.”
Anstey had met the Penney’s through church only in the past year.
“When you meet them, you fall in love with them,” Anstey said. “My heart goes out to Mark. I hope he pulls through this. He is there to help whoever and whenever in whatever way he can. I guess it is our turn to help him.”
A neighbour of Courtney Penney said she was pregnant. Ultrasound pictures were recently posted on her Facebook page.
RCMP confirmed ages and genders of five of the deceased on Saturday afternoon, but did not officially release their identities. Police said a two year-old-boy, an 11 year-old-girl and an 28-year-old woman were killed in the crash. A man and a woman, both 34, were also killed.
Two other people died in the crash, but have not yet been positively identified by police.
Around 1 p.m., a northbound pickup truck carrying three people pulled into the oncoming lane of Highway 63 to pass and collided head-on into a southbound pickup carrying six passengers, police said. There was an intense fire as a result of the crash on the stretch of highway about 50 kilometres north of Wandering River.
All three occupants of the northbound truck died, along with four from the truck the Wheatons and Penneys were riding in.
The seventh victim, a teenage girl, was pulled from the northbound truck by passing motorists before emergency crews arrived. She was flown to Edmonton and died at the Stollery Children’s Hospital later Friday.
The Plamondon Fire Department was called to the scene minutes after the crash, said Chief Hal Pressling. Responsible for all accidents and fires along that particular stretch of Highway 63, about eight Plamondon volunteers went to the scene with a rescue truck and a pumper truck.
“It was a very horrific accident and a very tough one for the guys to handle,” Pressling said. “We try to train the guys for just about everything, but you really can’t train for something like that. You react to it, you deal with it, and then you deal with it after.”
The crash occurred on a stretch of highway where serious accidents are common. Fort McMurray residents and travelers have clamoured for it to be widened and twinned for years. Construction is already underway near the accident scene.
Most of the debris had been cleared by Saturday afternoon. There was a pieces of plastic and electrical panels there, soda cans, an unopened bag of marshmallows. A short distance away, a cardboard wrapper that had contained an emergency blanket laid by the roadside.
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