Saturday was a bad day to be driving on Hwy 401 with a pair of accidents, one of them involving fatalities, closing the west lanes near Quinte West and Brighton for well over 12 hours.
The first accident took place around 5 a.m. with firefighters, OPP and ambulance responding to the stretch of highway between Brighton and Colborne. Traffic was detoured as the highway closed until after noon while emergency services worked on the scene.
The highway had barely reopened before a second accident occurred west of the County Road 40 interchange at around 1.p.m. A mini-van had collided with the rear of a tractor trailer.
Two people in the minivan, a 25-year-old male, a 22-year-old female, were pronounced deceased at the scene. An eight-month-old child was later pronounced deceased at the hospital. A four-year-old child was transported to a trauma centre in Toronto by Orange Air Ambulance with serious injuries. All are from Laval, Quebec.
The driver of the tractor trailer was not injured.
All lanes of traffic have since reopened.
