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UPDATE: No cause yet for fatal wrong-way crash on Highway 99

Vancouver man died in hospital after driving the wrong way down highway
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A YouTube video posted on Monday appears to show the driver who hit two cars while going the wrong way on Highway 99. (YouTube)

The man who hit two cars when he drove the wrong way down Highway 99 on Sunday has died, the BC Coroners Service said on Thursday.

The BC Coroners Service said Wednesday that the 26-year-old Vancouver man was “not expected to survive”.

RCMP said the man drove a Volkswagen Golf south on Highway 99 in the northbound lanes, starting at the southern exit from the Massey Tunnel and stopping only when he hit two cars near Highway 17.

Initially, police had thought he drove the wrong way through the Massey Tunnel as well, but on Tuesday Sgt. Lorne Lecker said he had instead crashed through the counterflow barriers south of the tunnel.

Speaking Thursday, Lecker said that no factors, including impairment, had been ruled in or out.

“The coroner’s doing a toxicological examination, we’re speaking to the family,” he said, adding that RCMP will also conduct a mechanical investigation into the car but that it’s not expected to turn up much.

Police have received so much video footage, Lecker said, that they will be able to reconstruct the entire crash as part of their investigation.

But although Lecker called dashcam footage “a game changer,” he warned drivers to stick to dashcams – and not their cell phones.

“We definitely don’t need a secondary fatal collision when we’re investigating the first,” Lecker said.

The crash sent two people who were driving northbound in their Toyota Rav 4 to hospital. One, a 48-year-old Surrey woman had unknown injuries and the other, a 19-year-old woman, has since been moved from intensive care but remains in hospital.


@katslepian

katya.slepian@bpdigital.ca

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