Members of the Cochrane RCMP detachment are investigating a fatal Sunday morning crash near the Ghost Reservoir Campground near Waiparous.

At approximately 4:30 a.m., RCMP, fire crews, and Cochrane EMS responded to a location near Township Rd 265B, approximately four kilometres from Highway 40, after a passing motorist noticed vehicle tracks leaving the road.

On arrival, emergency crews located a vehicle being driven by a severely injured teenager.

According to EMS spokesperson Stuart Brideaux, the 19-year-old said he had been driving a pickup truck with two passengers when the vehicle left the road and went down a steep embankment, sliding approximately 120-150 metres before crashing into a frozen body of water. The teen was able to free himself from the vehicle and climb the embankment, in the dark, in search of help for his badly injured passengers.

The crash is believed to have occurred some time after midnight and the teen's climb took roughly four hours. At the top of the hill, the teenager was able to gain access to one of the vehicles belonging to someone in his camping group at their campsite, roughly 500 metres from where the truck left the road.

EMS crews assessed the teenager and determined he had suffered lower leg injuries, hypothermia, and frost bite. A STARS Air Ambulance helicopter was dispatched to illuminate the dark crash scene.

Emergency crews rappelled to the pickup truck and located the bodies of two men, believed to be in their early twenties. The identities of the deceased have not been released. It is believed the two men had been riding in the box of the truck at the time of the crash.

"The overnight temperatures were bitterly cold and that would have impacted all those involved including patients and rescuers," said EMS spokesperson Stuart Brideaux. "Given the nature of the collision, where it was, a relatively remote area accessible only by descent by rope, anyone involved after a period of minutes, but certainly hours, would begin to feel severe effects of the severe cold."

The STARS crew transported the teenage driver to the Foothills Hospital in Calgary in serious condition.

RCMP continue to investigate the crash.