Sooke’s Brooke Ervin could hardly believe it as she drove into Parksville on Monday and saw people on the side of the highway grabbing money that was seemingly falling from the sky.
“Money was flying in the air and people were scrambling to pick it up,” Ervin said from Parksville.
Ervin had just come over the bridge and was slowly driving into Parksville when she saw what appeared to be a traffic jam ahead. She figured it was a rear-end crash as vehicles seemed to be parked in the roadway.
As she got closer, however, she saw a couple of people running to catch cash that was swirling in the air, and cards and piles of coins along the roadside.
“Bills in the air, coins, even credit cards,” she said, adding she couldn’t discern if they were credit cards, identification or gift cards.
The crowd soon grew to about 10 and she saw at least two men holding the cash to their chests to contain it.
“There were 10s, 20s, 50s and even $5 bills,” she said. “There had to be at least a couple of thousand dollars.”
Ervin said she worried about the person who had lost the money, whether it was an employee making a bank deposit or someone on vacation who couldn’t afford to lose it.
Oceanside RCMP Sgt. Shane Worth said Tuesday the wallet’s owner turned out to be a young woman who had left it, filled with a substantial amount of cash, on the roof of her car when she drove away.
Worth said the wallet was turned in Monday after it was found on the side of the road in the 600-block of Island Highway East in Parksville, and the owner retrieved it from the detachment Tuesday.
Worth said as far as police know, all the money was returned, as the wallet’s owner did not report missing any.
Worth said police wouldn’t have known about the incident had someone not turned in the wallet.
“We’re happy she got her money back and I think it says a lot about the citizens of Parksville.”
