1 dead and 4 sent to hospital after rollover crash that shut down Coquihalla Highway on Saturday

Vancouver -

At least one person has died after a rollover crash that shut down the southbound lanes of the Coquihalla Highway for much of the day Saturday.

BC RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Jesse O'Donaghey said in a statement that the BC Highway Patrol is investigating the Highway 5 crash that happened south of the Portia Brake Check, and that the BC Coroners Service attended the scene.

Five people were in the vehicle, say RCMP, one of whom was pronounced dead at the scene.

“First responders arrived on scene to find a heavily damaged grey Mazda CX-9 on its side,” said O’Donaghey.

“Two adults and two children sustained varying degrees of injuries, all serious and many considered to be potentially life threatening in nature. While sadly a fifth occupant of the vehicle, a woman in her 70s, was pronounced deceased at the scene.”

BC Emergency Health Services and RCMP say the two adults, a man and a woman, were airlifted to hospital in critical condition.

“At last update, both the man and woman were in emergency surgery,” said O’Donaghey in his statement late Saturday night.

The ambulance service dispatched two air ambulances and four ground ambulances to the scene.

RCMP say that one of the kids was transported by BC Air Ambulance to BC Children’s Hospital in critical condition, and that the other was taken to another Lower Mainland hospital with serious bodily injuries, believed to be non-life threatening.

RCMP say that first responders attended the scene around 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, and that collision reconstruction experts and the coroners are working to understand what led to the elderly woman’s death.

“In order to protect the privacy and identity of the deceased and all those injured in this tragic crash, no further information will be released by police,” O’Donaghey said.

DriveBC first tweeted reports of the incident just after 9:30 a.m., and soon confirmed that a crash had closed Highway 5's southbound lanes for more than 106 kilometres.

The closure was in effect from one kilometre south of Merritt to one kilometre north of Hope, according to DriveBC, which advised motorists to take Highway 5A to Highway 3 as a detour.

While the Coquihalla's northbound lanes remained open, DriveBC said major delays were expected in both directions.

Around 1:30 p.m., the agency tweeted that southbound traffic was "slowly being flushed," a phrase it later clarified meant that vehicles were being allowed to pass the crash scene and continue toward Hope.

The highway reopened around 3:30 p.m., according to DriveBC.