(file photo)

By Susan McNeil

Highway death

Chain of events led to man being killed by RCMP truck near Buffalo Narrows: SIRT report

Jul 10, 2025 | 12:13 PM

A string of unrelated events including fog, darkness and distance from emergency services played into the death of a man alongside a northern road, and there are no grounds to believe an offence was committed by any police officer, a report from the Saskatchewan Serious Incident Response Team has concluded.

The man died after being struck by an RCMP officer’s vehicle, which was responding to a call about another person who had been hit by a vehicle in the same area.

It was dark and foggy and the officer was driving at varying speeds with a maximum of 150 km/hour on their way to the call.

READ MORE: Man was struck near Buffalo Narrows

As required by law when a police officer is involved in an incident, SIRT was called to investigate and found that the officer was acting reasonably and in a manner that any officer would, given the situation.

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Two RCMP officers from the Buffalo Narrows detachment were called to Turnor Lake in the early morning hours of August 29, 2024 and responded in separate vehicles.

Before they got there, they received a call about a domestic violence situation and also received a call about a man lying on the side of Highway 155, south of Buffalo Narrows. They were told an ambulance was on the way but would take an hour to get there.

After responding to the domestic violence situation in Turnor Lake, one officer left to respond to the man lying on the side of the road, with the other officer following behind.

As the officer was on the way to the man on the road, the vehicle speed varied depending on the road and the intermittent fog creating difficult driving conditions. The officer had the lights and sirens on while driving.

Before arriving at the scene, however, the vehicle struck another person wearing dark clothes and laying on his back on the road, about three kilometers before the highway connects with 155.

Despite attempts to provide emergency care by both officers, the man was later pronounced deceased at the scene by medical staff.

His autopsy revealed he died of blunt force trauma from being struck and had consumed both alcohol and cocaine prior to the collision.

Inspection of the scene showed his footprints walking south on Highway 909 prior to the collision.

A different driver had picked him up earlier after almost hitting him in the fog but let him out after 10 minutes when he kept trying to get out of the moving vehicle.

In order to determine if there was fault on the part of the officer, SIRT investigators looked at the entire situation, including the volume of calls in a wide-spread area and their urgency along with road and driving conditions.

As is standard with SIRT reports, none of the parties involved were identified by name.

As for the first person who was initially reported as struck on Highway 155, RCMP said Buffalo Narrows Fire Department and EMS attended the scene and transported a pedestrian to hospital with injuries described as non-life-threatening in nature. Buffalo Narrows RCMP located the driver involved in the collision. No charges were laid in relation to the incident.

*Editors note: This story was amended on Friday, July 11 to include information from the RCMP about the initial reported collision.

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com

On BlueSky: @susanmcneil.bsky.social