An 18-year-old Pitt Meadows girl died after the car she was driving rolled into a water-filled ditch on Woolridge Road on Tuesday.
RCMP were called to the 12700-block of Woolridge Rd. just before 9 p.m. after a Honda Civic rolled off the road and landed upside down in a ditch.
Ron Glover was one of the first on hand at the crash site.
He lives nearby and along with a handful of neighbours sprang into action to rescue the two teens inside.
With the car upside down in the ditch, Glover and others were chest-deep in water, working at freeing the girls.
“We got the one girl out through the back window, broke the window,” he said Wednesday.
The second girl was trapped inside.
“The two of us, my neighbour and myself, he ran and got a knife. We were prying the door open with hammers and pick axes. It just wasn’t fast enough.”
The passenger managed to get her seatbelt off, but the driver lost consciousness and wasn’t able to do the same, police said.
Ridge Meadows RCMP along with members of the Pitt Meadows Fire Department and B.C. Ambulance Service attended to the scene, and ensured both teens got out of the car, and then taken to hospital.
The driver, however, did not survive. The 17-year-old female passenger suffered minor injuries.
“This is truly a tragic event,” Const. Amanda Harnett said.
“Police want to acknowledge the determination of the citizens who managed to get both occupants out before emergency personnel arrived on scene.”
Glover said neighbours all helped out.
“It was absolutely a community effort.”
The coroner has been notified and will conduct the investigation into the death, while Ridge Meadows RCMP, with assistance from regional collision analyst reconstructionist services, continue to investigate the cause of the crash.
Glover said cars speed along the road all the time, but doesn’t recall hearing a loud noise or speeding vehicles on Tuesday.
“It just seemed so muted and so quiet. I don’t think they were traveling fast. There was just no sound.”
Still, he may start a petition to slow down traffic on Woolridge.
“These are young kids. This is our future. It’s not an old fart like me. It’s just way out of hand here.”
The death Tuesday is the second traffic fatality involved a teen from Pitt Meadows this month.
Katelynn Kirkland, 15, was a passenger in a car that collided with a pickup truck along the Haney Bypass on May 10.
Glover wanted to remind students about to graduate from high school to learn one more thing: drive carefully.