Suspected impaired dump truck driver busts pole, passes out on 82nd Avenue

This odd wreck started in outer East Portland, but drifted westward …

Along SE 82nd Avenue of Roses, near Cooper Street in the Lents neighborhood, a truck shears off this wooden utility pole with such impact that it knocks the street light off its mount onto the sidewalk below.

Story and photos by David F. Ashton

Medical and police emergency first responders were summoned to a motor vehicle collision with “unknown injuries” on June 15 at 12:47 p.m. along SE 82nd Avenue of Roses.

Several calls arrived almost simultaneously at the 9-1-1 Center; dispatchers tried to puzzle out just where this wreck took place. Was it in the northbound lanes of 82nd, adjacent to SE Cooper Street in the Lents neighborhood – or, was it along the Avenue of Roses near Ramona Street, in the Brentwood-Darlington neighborhood?

As it turned out, the incident was in both locations.

Further north along SE 82nd Avenue of Roses, just past Ramona Street, Portland Police Bureau officers talk with a paramedic about the dump truck’s driver.

The incident began as a heavy-duty Ford L800 dump truck, driving northbound along 82nd Avenue of Roses, jumped the curb and stuck a wooden utility pole – shearing it off cleanly at the base, and leaving it hanging from its wires – near SE Cooper Street.

The large truck did slow down after that crash, witnesses said – but it didn’t stop. The vehicle kept rolling slowly northbound, and then began drifting across the road towards the left-turn lane. As the dump truck passed SE Ramona Street, it slowed further until it gently bumped into a Geek Squad van in the southbound lane, which stopped it.

The damage to this Ford L800 dump truck shows obvious evidence of the mishap.

Damage to the Geek Squad van appeared slight, and its driver wasn’t injured – but looked a bit nonplussed by the incident.

Portland Police Bureau officers closed southbound SE 82nd Avenue of Roses at Woodstock Boulevard to investigate, and to allow an ambulance to roll up to the scene.

“Police told me they found some kind of ‘drug pipe’, and also what they believe is Oxycodone, in the cab of the truck,” the Geek Squad van’s driver told East Portland News.

Officers try to talk with the dump truck’s driver before he is taken to a hospital.

Paramedics treated the dump truck driver in the ambulance; he was later transported to a local hospital for observation and potential further treatment.

So far, officials haven’t released the truck driver’s name, or any other information –  because, we’re told, “This incident remains under investigation”.

© 2021 David F. Ashton ~ East Portland News™

 

 

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