The self-employed truck driver Niclas Nordström endured a 20-hour entrapment by snow along Sweden’s E22 motorway on Wednesday and Thursday, experiencing what he described to The Local as the most severe weather conditions of his 30-year career.
Since launching his own road freight business in the 1990s, Nordström mistakenly thought that the traffic jam would have been resolved by the time he entered the E22 on Wednesday. He, along with roughly 1,000 other drivers, realized his error around 1:45 PM when he became stationary near Linderöd.
“The cause of the traffic jam had occurred much earlier, so I merely assumed that the police had already rerouted vehicles,” the 58-year-old shared with The Local. “But I didn’t think it through properly. If there had been a bit more quick-thinking, this wouldn’t have happened. The queues wouldn’t have been so long.”
As a blizzard ravaged the area, up to 1,000 vehicles were trapped on the E22 between Hörby and Kristianstad. The Armed Forces were called in to assist with evacuating drivers and supplying food and water to those still stranded.
Nordström’s truck is equipped only with a day cab, lacking a bed, forcing him to sleep upright at the steering wheel. However, he felt more fortunate than those trapped in passenger cars. On his way to Lund in Skåne and eventually home to Olofström in Blekinge county, he found himself without food or medicine, relying on the kindness of others for help.
“I met a couple from Holland who were very kind and offered me a coffee and a sandwich when I mentioned I was hungry,” he recounted, spending the night checking the Swedish Transport Administration’s website for updates on when the road would reopen.
He noted that the expected reopening times were continually delayed—first it was 8 PM, then midnight, and later 2 AM, ultimately pushing to 2 PM the next day. Eventually, around 10 AM, assistance arrived from a local farmer, who cleared a three-meter-wide path through the snow. They both exited the motorway by driving against the flow of traffic with their warning lights on until they reached a drivable road.
“We both managed to drive out through the opening. Although we were going against traffic, there was none, so it was safe. If we hadn’t taken the initiative ourselves, we would still be there,” Nordström said, noting he had never encountered such severe snow conditions in his decades of driving in southern Skåne and Blekinge. “I’ve never seen anything like this in 30 years. This is the worst weather since 1979 when Skåne was completely buried in snow.”
