WOOD BUFFALO, ALTA. – A 56-year-old P.E.I. man died in a two-vehicle collision just north of Fort McMurray Thursday.
The collision also resulted in the death of a 40-year-old Nova Scotia man, according to the Fort McMurray Today publication.
RCMP responded to a collision between a truck and semi-tractor on Highway 63 at about 1:20 p.m. Thursday.
Both drivers were pronounced dead at the scene and there were no passengers in either vehicle.
While RCMP are not releasing the names of the two men, the P.E.I. victim was a member of the Teamsters Canada union and had been working with Clean Harbors for almost 10 years.
The union issued a statement on the weekend expressing condolences to the man’s family.
“On behalf of our 125,000 members, I would like to express our sincerest condolences to the family and to his co-workers,” said Teamsters Canada president François Laporte. “The man we lost was the salt of the earth. He worked hard to support his family, and he was really well-liked by his colleagues.”
The union said the driver was a “fly in, fly out” worker who lived in P.E.I. He was hauling two large water tanks when his semi-tractor was struck head-on by a pick-up truck travelling northbound in the southbound lane.
The union said it also wanted to take the opportunity to remind the public to be careful on the road, especially around large trucks that cannot stop or get out of the way as quickly and easily as smaller vehicles.
