HALIFAX—Police say a 19-year-old Nova Scotia man transporting a mattress that flew off the roof of a car has been charged in connection with a fatal two-vehicle collision that claimed two lives over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

In a media release issued Wednesday, Nova Scotia RCMP said that Pictou County RCMP had charged Trenton resident Devon Michael Dewtie, 19, with two counts of criminal negligence causing death following a collision Saturday on Highway 104 in Barney’s River Station.

Police said their investigation into Saturday’s double fatality determined that prior to the collision, a mattress had flown off the roof of a car and was lying on the roadway. They said a transport truck driver lost control due to the mattress and struck an oncoming vehicle. The two female occupants of the oncoming vehicle died at the scene.

Dewtie was identified and arrested without incident at a home in Greenwood on Sunday.

“The information is that multiple witnesses were identified and provided information that led to the arrest of the male,” RCMP spokesperson Lisa Croteau said in an interview.

Police said Dewtie appeared in Pictou provincial court on Tuesday and was released on conditions. His next court appearance is scheduled for Nov. 12 at 9:30 a.m. in Pictou provincial court.

The dangerous section of roadway where the collision occurred is not twinned. In an interview Tuesday, Joe MacDonald, chief of the Barney’s River volunteer fire department, told the Star this latest tragedy brings the number of fatalities on that stretch of road up to 21 in the last decade.

The 38 kilometre stretch of single-lane highway between Sutherlands River and Antigonish has seen nearly 450 accidents since 2009, MacDonald said. While twinning would not eliminate collisions completely, he said it would drastically reduce the rate of head-on collisions, one of the top causes of fatalities in motor-vehicle accidents.

In July 2018, MacDonald stood with Justin Trudeau and Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil as they announced $90 million in federal funding and $195 million in provincial funds to twin the highway, with construction expected to be complete by the end of 2023.

The twinning project, which the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal estimated would cost $285 million as of 2016, will be funded using a public-private partnership (P3) model. This means that both provincial and federal governments will chip in, but the responsibilities for designing, building, financing, operating and maintaining the highway will fall to a private company.

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