‘The truck just crashed’: Family hits sink hole during trip to Vernon

VERNON – A Kamloops family visiting Vernon over the long weekend had a bit of a bumpy ride when their front tire became lodged in a small sinkhole.

Val Nakashima was driving with her husband, teenaged son and 84-year-old mother, who lives in Vernon, when the Toyota Tacoma’s front tire hit the sinkhole on 42 Avenue around 1 p.m. Saturday, April 15.

“The truck just crashed, just slammed down,” Nakashima says.

It was the left front wheel that plunged into the road, and from the driver’s seat, Nakashima felt the truck drop beneath her.

“The noise was crazy,” she says. “It was really shocking.”

At first, her husband told her to just put it in four-wheel drive.

“I said ‘I don’t think so,’” Nakashima says.

She looked out her window and saw that it wasn’t just a pothole; there was nothing but air underneath her tire, which was propped up on the edges of the asphalt.

“It (hole) was already bigger because of the tire going in. I didn’t know if it would go further. I told everybody ‘get out, get grandma out,’” she says.

Fortunately, she was turning off 42 Avenue onto 33 Street when it happened and was driving slowly to make the turn. If she’d been driving straight down 42 Avenue at a regular speed, she believes the situation could have been much worse.

“The policemen and firemen said if it had been a car it might have been totalled,” she says.

The family got out unhurt and Nakashima says everyone from bystanders to emergency responders were excellent.

A tow truck hoisted the Tacoma out of the hole and Nakashima was able to drive it home to Kamloops.

City of Vernon crews have 42 Avenue from 33 Street to Highway 97 closed while the sinkhole is assessed and repaired.

City spokesperson Tanya Laing Gahr says crews are excavating around the sink hole to determine what caused the failure and hope to have the road reopened by the end of the week.

While the official cause has yet to be determined, the city suspects it has to do with winter weather conditions and significant water penetration this year.

Pothole restoration in the city began April 10 and will continue throughout the summer.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Charlotte Helston or call 250-309-5230 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above.