The self-employed truck driver, Niclas Nordström, spent an exhausting 20 hours stranded by snow on Sweden’s E22 motorway, marking what he described as the worst weather conditions of his 30-year career.
Nordström, who has operated his own road freight company since the 1990s, assumed that the blocked traffic would have been resolved when he took the E22 on Wednesday. He quickly realized his mistake, along with approximately 1,000 other drivers, when he came to a standstill around Linderöd at about 1:45 PM.
“The cause of the traffic jam occurred much earlier; I thought the police would have redirected traffic by then,” the 58-year-old explained. “In hindsight, I should have been more thoughtful. If there had been quicker decision-making, we wouldn’t have ended up in such long queues.”
As a fierce blizzard struck, nearly 1,000 vehicles were trapped on the E22 between Hörby and Kristianstad. The Armed Forces were summoned to assist stranded individuals with evacuations and provide food and water to the stuck motorists.
Nordström’s truck is equipped with only a day cab, meaning he lacked a bed and had to sleep upright at the wheel. Still, he found himself in a slightly better situation than those in regular passenger cars. However, on his way to Lund in Skåne and then home to Olofström in Blekinge county, he had no food or medicine and had to depend on the generosity of others.
“I met a wonderful couple from Holland who helped me out the next day. I mentioned I was really hungry, and they kindly offered me coffee and a sandwich,” he recounted. During the night, he stayed up checking the Swedish Transport Administration’s website to see when the road would reopen.
“The reopening time kept getting pushed back. It started as 8 PM, then midnight, then 2 AM, and eventually 2 PM the next day,” he stated.
Ultimately, around 10 AM, the Dutch couple received assistance from a local farmer, who cleared a path in the snow for them to escape. They drove against traffic, flashing their warning lights, until they reached an accessible road.
“We both exited through the gap, driving against traffic technically, but there was no danger since the road was deserted. It was our initiative that allowed us to leave; otherwise, we might still be stuck there,” Nordström said. He noted that, having primarily driven in southern Skåne and Blekinge, he had never faced such severe snow conditions in his career. “I’ve never experienced anything like this in 30 years. The last time Skåne faced conditions this severe was back in 1979, when the entire region was buried in snow.”
