Self-employed truck driver Niclas Nordström was stranded by snow on Sweden’s E22 motorway for 20 hours Wednesday and Thursday, describing it as the worst weather he has faced in his 30-year career.
Since the 1990s, Nordström has managed his own road freight business. He mistakenly thought the traffic would be cleared when he took the E22 on Wednesday and realized his error around 1:45 PM near Linderöd, alongside about 1,000 other drivers.
“I believed the traffic jam had been handled a while ago, so I assumed the police would have redirected cars to alternate routes,” the 58-year-old shared. “But I didn’t think it through enough. If there had been more quick thinking, this wouldn’t have happened, and the queues wouldn’t have been so long.”
As a blizzard struck the region, up to 1,000 vehicles were stuck on the E22 between Hörby and Kristianstad. The Armed Forces were called in to assist with evacuations and to deliver food and water to those left trapped.
Nordström’s truck is equipped only with a day cab, lacking a sleeping area, leading him to spend the night sitting upright at the wheel. However, he felt better off than those in passenger vehicles. Despite being en route to Lund in Skåne and later to Olofström in Blekinge county, he found himself without food or medicine and had to depend on others for help.
“There were various people there. I connected with a couple from Holland who assisted me the next day. I mentioned that I was really hungry, and they kindly invited me in for coffee and a sandwich,” he recalled.
Throughout the night, Nordström checked the Swedish Transport Administration’s website for updates on the road’s reopening. Times kept shifting, firstly to 8 PM, then to midnight, and eventually to 2 PM the following day.
Finally, around 10 AM, the Dutch couple received assistance from a local farmer, who cleared a three-meter-wide path in the snow, enabling them to leave the motorway. They both drove against traffic down the cleared lane, using their warning lights, until they reached a safe road.
Having mainly driven in southern counties like Skåne and Blekinge, Nordström had never experienced such extreme snow conditions. “I’ve never been in anything like this in 30 years of driving. Such severe weather hasn’t hit Skåne since 1979, when the region was covered in snow,” he remarked.
