A truck struck and seriously injured a traffic control flagger in a work zone in Langford this morning.
West Shore RCMP say a truck travelling at a “slow rate of speed” hit a 24-year-old female around 10:25 a.m. She was part of a Flaggirls traffic control crew working with BC Hydro in the 3000 block of Sooke Road, near the start of the four-lane stretch south of Slegg Lumber.
The woman was knocked unconscious and suffered significant blood loss from her head, said Genevieve Harold on Monday, one of the owners of Langford-based Flaggirls Traffic Control.
She remained in the intensive care unit in Victoria General Hospital over the weekend where her head injury was monitored. By Saturday swelling in her head had stopped and she was able to breath on her own. By Sunday she was talking.
“We are all very upset. We hope she is all right,” Harold said. “This is the first injury we’ve had on a job site. We’re not too happy about it.”
An RCMP collision reconstruction officer was on scene for the morning and afternoon. RCMP Cpl. Kathy Rochlitz said it’s too early to determine fault and its unclear how the flagger and driver crossed paths on a straight stretch of road on a clear day.
Harold said Flaggirls has beefed safety measures on its worksites, adding more cones and flags to alert drivers of their presence on the road, and she hopes motorists will be more careful as well.
“There’s a lot of construction going on, and drivers get complacent to seeing our orange signs,” Harold said. “Hopefully this is an eye opener to motorists everywhere that they need to slow down and be careful driving through the sites.”
Anyone who may have witnessed this incident are requested to contact the West Shore RCMP at 250-474-2264.
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