Driver sprints away from fatal crash

UPDATED > Here’s why police are looking for the driver, and the passengers, of a car involved in a two-car smashup on Division Street …

As a pounding rainstorm hits outer East Portland, two cars collide and fly off the roadway along SE Division Street in the Powellhurst-Gilbert neighborhood.

Story and photos by David F. Ashton

When a two-car collision sent two cars off the roadway, careening across boulders in front a Portland General Electric power substation and into the fence at SE 139th Avenue along Division Street, emergency first-responders braved the storm underway to rescue the victims, on October 13, at 9:04 p.m.

The crew of Portland Fire & Rescue (PF&R) Mill Park Station Truck 7 broke out their powerful Holmatro Vehicle Rescue tools and cut off the roof of a blue Ford that had landed facing north beside the east-west thoroughfare.

After cutting off the car’s roof, and extracting a victim, firefighters stand down near Rescue 7.

At the same time, dispatchers told PF&R engine crew to “search for victims that might have been ejected from the other vehicle” – but they found nobody in, or near, the smashed silver Cadillac, which was mostly hidden from view behind bushes and against the fence of the power substation.

An AMR ambulance raced westward on SE Division Street, taking the extracted crash victim to a Portland hospital.

Standing near the wrecked Ford, a PPB Traffic Division examine the other car involved in the smashup – whose occupants fled the scene.

“Medical personnel attempted life-saving treatment, but the driver died after being transported by ambulance to a Portland hospital,” later reported Portland Police Bureau Public Information Officer Sgt. Pete Simpson.

“One of the vehicles’ occupants fled the scene on foot; three occupants of that car were described as African American males,” Simpson added.

Hidden by bushes, only the rear of the Cadillac is visible; firefighters look for clues to the crash in front of the power substation.

The PPB Traffic Division Major Crash Team responded to the scene, and conducted an investigation of what had become a fatality hit-and-run, closing SE Division Street for several hours.

UPDATE
Simpson identified the driver killed in this crash as 34-year-old Robin Marie Parks.

“Hit and Run investigator are continuing to investigate the circumstances of the crash and working to identify the driver and occupants of the other vehicle involved in the crash,” Simpson added.

Anyone with information on the identity of these people should contact Officer Phil Maynard at 503-793-3809, phillip.maynard@portlandoregon.gov.

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