Self-employed truck driver Niclas Nordström found himself stranded by snow on Sweden’s E22 motorway for 20 hours on Wednesday and Thursday, describing the conditions as the worst he has experienced in his 30-year career.
Nordström, who established his own road freight business in the 1990s, mistakenly thought that traffic would be cleared when he took the E22 on Wednesday. He realized his error at around 1:45 PM near Linderöd, joining approximately 1,000 other drivers caught in the jam.
“I assumed the police would have redirected the traffic much earlier,” said the 58-year-old driver. “I didn’t think it through enough. If there had been a little more quick thinking, we could have avoided such long queues.”
Up to 1,000 vehicles were stranded on the E22 between Hörby and Kristianstad as a severe blizzard hit the area. The Armed Forces were called in to assist stranded motorists by evacuating cars and providing food and water to those still stuck.
Since Nordström’s truck is equipped with only a day cab, he had to sleep sitting up, but he was in a better situation than those in passenger vehicles. On his way to Lund in Skåne and heading home to Olofström in Blekinge, he had no food or medicine in the truck and needed to rely on the kindness of others.
“I met a couple from Holland who were incredibly helpful. When I mentioned I was starving, they invited me in for coffee and a sandwich,” he shared.
During the night, he continuously checked the Swedish Transport Administration’s website for updates on the road conditions. “The reopening time kept getting pushed back—first 8 PM, then midnight, then 2 AM, and finally 2 PM the next day,” he explained.
Eventually, around 10 AM, the Dutch couple received assistance from a local farmer who cleared a three-meter-wide pathway through the snow. Together, they drove in the wrong direction down the opposite lane, flashing their warning lights until they reached a navigable road.
Nordström noted, “We had to take our own initiative to get out; otherwise, we would still be stuck there.” His experiences on Wednesday were unlike anything else in his decades of driving in Skåne and Blekinge. “I’ve never encountered anything like this; the weather hasn’t been this severe in Skåne since 1979,” he recalled.
