It was a team effort to retrieve packages from a Purolator truck southeast of Petrolia Saturday.
In an interview with Sarnia News Today, driver Ben Brown said he got stuck on Black Ash Road, between Lasalle Line and Petrolia Line, at 2 p.m. Friday.
"After four hours of sitting there, I got the ok to leave the truck," said Brown. "I had to walk about 200 yards to meet up with the tow truck driver who gave me a ride home."
Purolator driver Ben Brown. Submitted photo.
Brown, 41, of Sarnia, said he's worked out of the Point Edward shipping centre for nearly ten years and never been stuck like this.
"Six foot snow drifts are keeping anyone from being able to pull [the truck] out from the Lasalle Line end. The Petrolia Line side of the truck has even higher snow drifts."
Brown said knowing there were still packages in the vehicle, he recruited his two sisters, Rose and Jennifer Brown, to go back and get them Saturday.
"Today's sole mission was to get the 25 packages that I had to leave behind," Brown said. "The issue was with the high winds, the snow drifts were double what they were last night and now 200 yards out instead of 100 or so."
Brown said Rose agreed to go to the truck with him, while Jennifer watched their vehicles and the packages they recovered.
"She had the time of her life," Brown said. "It was very hard to hike back to the truck. The doors were frozen, [we] had to climb down the eight foot ditch and back out through a farmers field to get back to our Jeeps. Then cross back over another ditch."
Brown said he did the recovery on his own time, and was happy to get the packages back to the Kendall Street site.
"[I just wanted] the piece of mind from being able to get the packages back safely to the depot."
As for the work to get them, Brown said it's a Christmas Eve memory he and his sisters will never forget.
