An eagle-eyed Creston RCMP officer saved an 85-year-old woman from spending a potentially life-threatening night in her car, which went down a steep embankment on Highway 21 on Nov. 26.
“We got a call in the evening that she had left at 2 p.m. to go to Porthill and hadn’t returned,” RCMP Cpl. Monte Taylor said on Monday. “When we checked with the border we learned she hadn’t crossed that day.”
Taylor and Const. Ryan Salant began to patrol Highway 21 for clues late in the evening.
Taylor drove along the highway shoulder while his partner shined a flashlight down the embankment.
“Const. Salant was almost hanging out of the window trying to see when he got a glimpse of a taillight,” Taylor said.
Salant scrambled down the embankment while Taylor radioed for an ambulance. The woman was uninjured, but had remained in the car, knowing that she would be unable to make it up the steep slope to the highway. She was chilled and uncomfortable after spending more than eight hours in a car that she couldn’t restart.
Paramedics were unable to bring her back up and Creston Fire Rescue members were called to perform a longline rescue. The woman was taken to hospital, where she was treated for exposure.