'It was really surreal': Vancouver couple narrowly escapes deadly Lillooet mudslide

Vancouver -

With the main highways from the B.C. Interior to Vancouver closed, David and Melissa Medeiros decided to take their chances with Highway 99 through Pemberton to get home from Kamloops on Monday.

When traffic stopped for a small mudslide just south of Lillooet, David got out to take a look at the blockage while Melissa remained in the car.

“I hear this cracking sound and I turn around and the forest is just moving, coming down maybe 30 feet behind me,” said Melissa, describing a massive mudslide that came crashing onto the highway. Her husband was nowhere in sight.

“I heard like a thunderous sound. And I saw the trees sliding down the mountain and I looked at it and I was kind of frozen for a minute, and then I heard other people start yelling and then it just clicked that I don't know where my wife is,” said David.

He ran back to where he’d left the car, and saw Melissa speed away from the slide, honking her horn. They narrowly escaped the torrent of mud and debris, but saw several others cars had been caught up in the slide.

“There was an off-duty firefighter who really got everyone organized and got everyone gathering chainsaws and shovels and ropes and doing everything they could do go in and help get these people out of their vehicles,” said Melissa, who watched as motorists and passengers covered in blood and mud stumbled out of their wrecked cars.

The Medeiroses and other motorists were stuck on the road for hours, wondering what could happen next.

“We were trapped with all these people, we didn’t know when we would get out, we didn’t know if another mudslide was going to happen. It was still raining like crazy, and there was the river on one side that was filling up,” said Melissa.

The Vancouver couple eventually got to a hotel in Pemberton. But not everyone made it out alive. The body of a woman from the Lower Mainland has been found in the slide, and crews are still searching for other possible victims.

“Deepest condolences to the family, a simple drive home gone bad for sure. What more can you say, it’s a tragic event,” said Pemberton Mayor Mike Richman.

Highway 99 remains closed between Lillooet and Pemberton. The Medeiroses know they were seconds away from being swept up in the slide, and not making it home to their loved ones.

“I’m very happy, very lucky to be alive,” said David. “Very happy and lucky my wife is still here and wasn’t caught in it.”