Pedestrian struck by garbage truck, suffers life-threatening injuries in Halifax

A garbage truck struck and injured a pedestrian in Halifax on Monday.

Police say a pedestrian is badly injured after she was hit by a garbage truck in Halifax early Monday morning.

Halifax Regional Police responded to the scene in the 200 block of Lacewood Drive at 5:35 a.m.

Police say the 34-year-old female pedestrian, who was in a marked crosswalk at the time of the collision, was taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries.

A section of Lacewood Drive was closed to traffic for several hours Monday morning. It has since reopened.

Police say their investigation is ongoing and in the early stages.

The Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) told CTV News Atlantic the garbage truck involved in the incident is not owned or operated by HRM. Jake Fulton, a public advisor for HRM said despite this, road safety is the top priority.

“The importance of road safety, regardless of ownership of the vehicle or what the vehicle is, is a very high priority for the municipality,” Fulton said.

Fulton said staff are working on implementing a number of improvements to protect everyone on the roadway.

“Those include traffic signal upgrades, with leading pedestrian intervals. Those are when pedestrians are able to start crossing the road before the light turns green for traffic going in the same direction,” he said.

Norm Collins from the Crosswalk Safety Society of Nova Scotia, said people need to be more attentive, whether they are drivers or pedestrians.

“It’s a combination of all kinds of things and in our opinion, is inattentive drivers and speeding drivers. Its pedestrians. I just saw one who didn’t activate the RFE light here behind me. You know, everybody just needs to be more attentive and more focused,” he said.

Police did not provide details on how the collision occurred on Monday morning.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Vanessa Wright

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