A couple weeks ago I had the chance to go up in a helicopter with some JNP fire officials for some wildfire coverage. Always an interesting assignment when in a helicopter, I sat there as we flew over the Icefields Parkway and listened to the conversation between the pilot and other parks fire worker sitting in the front through my headset.

The pilot mentioned that he had just flown up from Canmore that morning. ‘Safer than taking that highway,’ he said to his partner in the front.

I was reminded of that a few days later when, as I had just nicely pulled onto the highway from Waterfowl Lake campground, my girlfriend driving behind me as we had met at the campground from different towns.

Not five minutes into the drive a truck pulled out into oncoming traffic (me) as he attempted to pass several vehicles on his long weekend drive. Unsure how far he expected to drive into oncoming traffic, I quickly realized he might not make it. Finally, at the last minute I swerved into the shoulder as he swerved back into his lane, likely causing the car now behind him to hit their brakes, and leaving my girlfriend behind me in shock of what had just happened.

A close call, indeed.

I wondered what the other driver was thinking. Was he shaken up by what he’d just done? Was his wife yelling at him? Did his kids sleep through the whole thing in the back seat? Did he think it was a fun game of chicken? Did it even phase him?

I admit I was a little shaken up, but nothing too much. Certainly nothing compared to what saw this past week.

Last week I was on my way back from Hinton, driving along Jasper Lake when in the distance I saw some smoke, and some stopped cars.

Seconds later I pulled up to four cars, most of them destroyed, spanning across the highway from ditch to ditch and about fifty feet long. Several people were already out, running around trying to help the victims, as the paramedics wouldn’t arrive for about ten to fifteen minutes still.

Never having been involved with something like that, I wasn’t sure what to do. I did my best to help out, but there were quite a few people who were involved or nearby that seemed to know what to do. Off-duty fire fighters, nurses, and police officers, etc.

Looking into the cars, I could see a woman, clearly seriously injured, as she told an off-duty firefighter that ‘it hurt everywhere’.

I felt sick looking through the open, broken window at the severity of her wounds. Fire, police and paramedics soon arrived and quickly went to work on all the vehicles, as I, along with the many other by-standers at that point, watched as a movie-like scene unfolded.

Being a photojournalist, you always are hoping for something ‘big’ to happen to make great photo. In school, you have ethics courses about what to do when you are first to the scene of an accident. But I don’t think anything can prepare you for what I saw, and it is certainly not something that I hope to get the chance to photograph.

It is amazing how many people were on the scene by chance that had medical experience, and I take my hat off to those who were there helping out before the medics arrived, as well as the firefighters, paramedics, police and Parks Canada workers who deal with everything from dying victims to truckers who are mad that the road is closed.

The woman in that car did not survive. The driver who hit her is suspected to have been drinking. It is a tragic situation that should have never happened in the first place and could have been prevented.

The highways coming into Jasper in tourist season are busy, and just as deadly in the winter. Drive safe and be alert – because we can’t all travel in helicopters.