“I'm glad to be alive,” Hillary Cohen said bluntly. “I saw this thing flying at me.”
This text is a translation of an article from CTV News.
Mrs. Cohen and her husband, Dan Soleva, were driving eastbound on Highway 40 toward Montreal from the west of the island overnight Thursday into Friday.
As they drove under the Highway 13 underpass, something hit the windshield of their Volvo SUV.
“We saw a huge piece of concrete in the shape of a meteor heading towards us,” said Mr. Solewa said. “It came at 100 km/h, it hit our windshield, it bounced, then it hit our windshield a second time and bounced off the right side of our car with a big impact.”
Ms. Cohen was putting on makeup in the passenger seat and looked up to see the item.
“I looked at him and said, 'Are we dead? Are we dead?' she said. “The impact was very strong, very fast. All I remember was seeing a black object coming towards me.
The couple's vehicle sustained significant damage to its windshield, rear view mirror and front camera.
“It's really surreal,” Mr Solewa added. “Looks like a bomb went off in our car.”
Shocked, he still continued driving, trying to stay in his lane so as not to endanger other motorists.
“I don't know what happened,” he recalled. “I saw my glasses in pieces. It was so weird.”
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The couple went to the police station of the City of Montreal (SPVM), where officers told them that Thursday must be ice from the storm.
Mr. Other drivers have made similar complaints or called 911 about this stretch of road, Soleva said.
The Sûreté du Québec (SQ) told Mr Solewa that the pit had been filled.
Parents who did not travel with their children in the car were thankful.
“We have 3-year-old twins who never want to get in the car again. It's very stressful because we're going under these underground passages.”
They now feel stressed while driving and angry at the thought that many potholes in Montreal are in the same condition.
They are also grateful to drive a Volvo.
“I wasn't attacked right away,” Soleva says. “It hit me when I went to Volvo West Island to have my windscreen replaced and the technician replacing my window told me that if it had been any other car it would have been dangerous. It was then that I realized the severity of the accident.
