Slick roads stymie drivers

WASILLA — Slick conditions on winding roads combine Thursday to cause five accidents in a two-mile stretch of Wasilla-Fishhook Road within 20 minutes or so.

“It was very slick starting about Mile 4 on up to Tex-Al (Drive),” said Central Mat-Su Fire Chief James Steele.

The accidents, all of which were reported at around 1:30 p.m., were spread between Miles 5 and 6.

Steele worked on the most serious of the five, a head-on crash at Wasilla-Fishhook Road and Curtis Drive. The cars involved were both smallish sedans. Three of Central’s ambulances responded. The way it was reported, Steele said, rescuers thought they’d have to break out the heavy saws.

“Actually, we did not have to do any extrication on them. We stabilized the vehicles and were able to access all of them,” he said. “One of them was actually out of the vehicle, another actually got out of the vehicle right after we arrived.”

One of the patients was hospitalized with serious injuries. Three more went to the hospital with injuries that were less severe.

He said the other wrecks were everything from two-car crashes to rollovers to vehicles in the ditch.

Central Mat-Su responded from the south and quickly had to call in some extra hands. The Palmer Fire Department came from the north and started working on the wrecks from that end.

While that was going on, another ambulance call came through in Central’s coverage area. The West Lakes Fire Department had to cover it.

Nobody in any of the other four accidents needed to be hospitalized, Steele said.

Asked how unusual it is to have to sort out five accidents in a two-mile stretch of road, he said it’s actually not unheard of, especially as motorists get used to driving on snow again after a summer’s worth of good traction.

“This time of the year, we occasionally will get, fortunately infrequently, but we’ll get a little rash in one area,” he said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.