This afternoon on the Western Highway we were reminded of how dangerous the road can be and how suddenly and unexpectedly accidents can happen. Our crew came upon two accidents on our way from Belmopan. The first was at mile 41 where, ironically, road crews were working on the road safety project. Their work on one side of the highway forced the closure of one lane, and all vehicles were signalled to slow down or stop to make way for the other lane to pass. But when one bus driver went for his brakes, nothing happened: his brakes failed and he was about to rear end Channel 5's pickup when he swerved to avoid that collision and slammed head on into an oncoming car in the other lane. All three residents of the car were hurt, receiving varying levels of injury. The two passengers in the front seat, a couple, both received chest injuries form the impact, while their mother who was in the back seat, seemed quite seriously injured and had to be put to lie down on the road side while she was consoled. This is during the wait for an ambulance, which was longer than it should have been because no one could get through to 911 and there was no answer at the Belmopan Hospital. No one on the bus appeared to be hurt and the driver admitted that his brakes failed.
Then at mile 6, right after the Burdon Canal bridge we came upon another accident that had just happened. Calman Hall was heading to Belize City in a pickup assigned to the Department of Fisheries when he crashed into a bus heading in the opposite direction.
Fortunately, he only grazed the side of the bus, so it was not a head on collision. The impact raked the side of the pickup and sent Hall careening off the road into the bushes on the other side. No one in the bus was hurt, and Hall's passenger was also unhurt. He did received injury however and his hand appeared broken, and the BERT Ambulance came to pick him up. The pickup was very extensively damages to its driver side, while the bus was also damaged and commuters had to board another bus.
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