Near-fistfight may have preceded crash that injured five

A violent crash that injured five people in the Rural Municipality of East St. Paul Wednesday night may have been preceded by a near-fistfight in a convenience store parking lot, witnesses told the Free Press.

Cellphone video recorded by a customer showed a man taking a swing at another man, who appeared to dodge the punch while backing away.

“I was gassing up and I saw these two guys — one guy swung, but there was no contact,” said the customer, who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity. “They settled down and they walked back to their trucks like nothing happened. It was a weird situation.”

The customer said he was sitting in his car outside Garven Convenience, and he couldn’t hear what the men or other people nearby were saying.

Two similar pickup trucks were involved in the crash on Raleigh Street, just south of Pritchard Farm Road, a short time later at about 8:15 p.m.

RCMP would not say Friday if the same people were involved.

Police said witnesses reported seeing a grey Nissan truck and grey Dodge Ram 1500 being driven erratically and at very high speeds, while the drivers were possibly racing or chasing each other, moments before the collision.

Video from a home surveillance system showed sparks flying while the vehicles collided and flipped into a ditch next to a path for pedestrians and cyclists.

The Nissan driver — a 29-year-old man — and the Dodge’s occupants — three men, ages 37, 30 and 26, and a 23-year-old woman — were taken to hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

STARS air ambulance flew two men from the scene, just north of Winnipeg, to Health Sciences Centre.

At the scene, a man who was involved in the collision referred to a gas station while yelling at another man who was also involved in the crash, said witness Stacey Corden.

She feared there were fatalities when she ran to the crash site from her home and approached the heavily-damaged trucks. Corden said a man was being hit with what she thought was a stick as she got closer.

A man at Garven Convenience said RCMP officers visited sometime afterward and looked at video from the gas station and store, located about five kilometres away in the RM of Springfield.

The man, who wouldn’t disclose his name or his position at the store, said he wasn’t present at the time, and he wasn’t aware of a fight or dispute in the parking lot.

Charges had not been laid in connection with the crash as of Thursday. Spokeswoman Tara Seel said Friday the RCMP had no update to provide on the investigation.

STARS ambulance in east st. paul crash footage
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chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca