HALIFAX—A fire chief is expressing frustration after a woman allegedly sped through the scene of a fatal crash this week on a Nova Scotia highway.

George Emin, chief of the Lake Vaughan Fire Department in Yarmouth County, said two of his firefighters were almost hit by the driver in question while responding to a fatal collision on Highway 103 on Wednesday night.

“Two of my firefighters had to jump out of the way. She missed them by about a foot and missed our fire truck by about a foot,” Emin said.

He noted the incident took place about 15 minutes after emergency personnel arrived at the crash scene.

A 73-year-old Yarmouth woman was stopped by police and charged with failing to obey a traffic control person directing traffic in a temporary work area, a $410 ticket, before being allowed to leave.

RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Dal Hutchinson said police don’t keep statistics on how often people fail to slow down near the scene of an accident, but he noted it’s quite common.

“I’ll be honest with you, unfortunately it’s happening on a daily basis with people driving by collision scenes, not moving over, not respecting the barriers that are put in place, whether it be a car sitting there with its lights on to block the road or pylons or somebody from [Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal] or fire department,” he said.

Emin said he was almost hit himself while at a structure fire in nearby Wedgeport, N.S., about six years ago.

“One lady was stopped there for about 15 minutes and she decided, I’m going home, and so she drove up to us at the roadblock,” he recalled. “We told her no, she wasn’t going through, and she said, ‘I’m going through,’ and we stood in front of her vehicle. We put her hands on the roof, said, ‘No you're not going.’

“She just continued on and pushed us out of the way and we jumped out of the way,” he said. “All she received for that was failing to obey a command in a work zone. She had received a fine and nothing else. To me, it’s not taken seriously enough.”

Emin wants more action to be taken by police in these types of situations. He was particularly frustrated that the woman charged on Wednesday night was allowed to drive away with only a ticket.

“As far as I’m concerned, that should have been the end of her driving right there,” he said. “Say, OK. Enough is enough. You’re not driving anymore today.’ It should have been dealt with. It should have been taken seriously, and it wasn’t, as far as I’m concerned.”

“It’s unbelievably frustrating,” he went on to say. “If that was an RCMP officer that happened to, it would have been dealt with extremely seriously. With us, oh well, give ’em a fine, send ’em on their way.”

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Police say paramedics took four people with serious injuries from both vehicles to hospital from Wednesday’s crash that took place at about 6:15 p.m.

One of the injured, a 67-year-old woman from Middle West Pubnico, was pronounced dead at hospital.

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