A man who witnessed the driver speeding the wrong way down Highway 1 Thursday recorded the moments just after policed stopped the vehicle and threw the woman at the wheel onto the ground.
Jay Thandi was driving with a friend down Highway 1 when he noticed police lights. He says he saw an unmarked police car ram an oncoming vehicle going the wrong way. That made the vehicle go into the barrier, and then the officer rammed it again so it couldn't leave.
That's when Thandi told his friend to take a video
"It was out of a movie," he said. "He threw her on the ground and you could just hear her screaming and stuff."
Thandi's video shows one officer slashing the wrong way vehicle's tires so it can't escape while a second officer removes the woman from the vehicle and throws her on the ground.
"It's just something you see that's usually on the news already, not right in front of you," he said.
The woman at the wheel drove several kilometres going westbound in the eastbound lanes, crossing over the Port Mann bridge from Surrey to Coquitlam before being stopped by police.
She caused a two-car collision when a vehicle that swerved to avoid her hit another vehicle.
Suifya Shafiqe was driving with her seven-year-old daughter when she came face-to-face with the wrong-way driver.
"All I can think is my options are either I go head on collision with this person or I make the decision and I swerve into the car next to me," she said.
Fortunately, she avoided colliding with the car next to her.
Police say there were no obvious signs of alcohol impairment when they stopped the wrong way driver, but they aren't ruling out intoxication—or a mental health issue—as factors behind the high-speed incident.
With a report from CTV Vancouver's Scott Roberts.
