"I was amazed. I'm in pain, but no broken bones." - A lookback at the February crash where a Portager escaped death

As we continue our look back at some of the biggest individual stories of the year, one photo of a wrecked car will never be forgotten, as the person involved walked away with no broken bones.

On February 18th, Scott Cairns was on the road heading back to Portage la Prairie as part of his job for Efficiency Manitoba. Roads were pretty bad during that storm, but the highways were open, and the former Portager thought it would be fine to head back to his hometown. He knew there was a Blizzard Warning, but he planned to drive slowly, and safely. Once he was on the road, he realized his mistake, and planned to turn around in Elie. He never got the chance.

"Somebody rear-ended me, and I heard it was a semi, and then it basically turned me, and then another semi hit me on the driver's side," Cairns said a week after the accident. "That's all I heard from the doctor when I woke up in the Health Sciences Centre (in Winnipeg)."

Looking back at the incident, Cairns says he will never risk driving in those conditions again.

"I would have been the person that would drive through that kind of weather before this accident. You know, I'm not that person anymore."

We have already had some winter days where visibility was reduced, and Cairns hopes you will also stay off of the roads during those times.

"It's not just about how well you're driving, it's about everybody else that's on the road. You gotta think twice, and it's not worth it," says Cairns. "I went back to work in August. That's a sizable amount. I had to go through physio, I had to lose the work, and all that stuff. For me, looking back, I definitely would not do that again. I'm much more careful."

The photo of his 2016 Honda Fit went viral earlier this year as people could not believe he survived the horrific crash. When the weather is poor, he does not feel bad about postponing an out-of-town meeting.

"Most people are understanding, if you phone and cancel something and postpone it. I've cancelled a few out of town jobs last week and they were fine, and in fact, one person even phoned me to cancel because they said there's cars in the ditch all over," says Cairns. "It's not worth it. Just postpone it for a week."