Distracted driving blamed for 2 multi-vehicle crashes east of Calgary

Distracted driving led to two accidents involving six vehicles early Wednesday morning, Brooks RCMP say.

The first collision happened around 1:20 a.m. MT on eastbound Highway 1 just west of Brooks when the drivers of three vehicles collided while they were watching fire crews clean up a semi-tractor trailer, which had caught fire overnight.

There were no injuries.

But when fire crews crossed the highway to help clear away the crash and stop oncoming traffic, there was another collision as one vehicle rear-ended two others.

A 64-year-old woman had to be extracted from her minivan and taken to hospital in Brooks.

She was then flown by STARS air ambulance to the Foothills hospital in Calgary with serious, but not life threatening injuries.

"There's a lot of things that are very distracting to some drivers on the highway,and if you're not paying attention to what you're doing behind the wheelit's very dangerous at times," said Corp. Ian Patey.

Brooks is about 200 kilometres southeast of Calgary.