Collision kills Big Lake man

BIG LAKE — A Valley man died Wednesday in a car wreck on the Parks Highway.

Alaska State Troopers say that at about 8:03 p.m. officers were called to the accident scene. Rodney C. Coalson, 41, of Big Lake, was northbound in a 2000 Chevrolet Tracker when he lost control near the highway’s intersection with Forest Lake Drive and spun sideways into the oncoming lane.

The Tracker hit a 1999 Ford F-250 pickup driven by Janell L. Brown, 38, of Wasilla.

District 2 Chief Bill Gamble, who oversees ambulance and fire service in the area, said the accident closed the highway for about four hours.

He said his crews responded and were there for about two hours. He said it was immediately apparent to both of the first two medics on scene that Coalson hadn’t survived.

“They declared him dead on scene,” Gamble said of Coalson.

Brown was out of her pickup when medics arrived, Gamble said. Some motorists had stopped to help comfort her.

“[Medics] got to the scene and the female driver of the white F-250 was hysterical and so they pretty much got a hold of her and got her in an ambulance,” Gamble said.

He said it appeared from the scene that both drivers had little, if any, time to react.

“There was almost no warning,” Gamble said. He’s been told that the speed of the impact had to be at least 100 mph, with each vehicle traveling 50 mph or more.

Troopers say Brown was taken to Mat-Su Regional Medical Center. Gamble said she was taken there mostly for evaluation.

“She wasn’t injured as far as anybody could tell but she was just very distraught from the accident,” Gamble said.

Gamble said it’s standard procedure to take a person who’s been through an accident like that to the hospital, if only as a precaution.

“Especially when you have a high-speed impact like that you never know what’s going on inside of you.”

The chief said driving conditions were treacherous at the time — he’d driven that stretch of road shortly before the accident.

“I was thinking to myself as I got out on the Parks Highway just how slippery it was out there,” Gamble said. “There was just that fine glaze of ice on the road and they were extremely slippery.”