SUV driver survives head-on crash on Marine Drive

See why a witness says “it’s just a miracle” that the person wasn’t killed …

A long outer East Portland segment of NE Marine Drive is closed for hours, when a SUV runs headlong into a semi truck.

Story and photos by David F. Ashton

The afternoon of June 27 turned out to be a clear summer day, so weather wasn’t a factor in a semi-truck vs. SUV head-on collision on NE Marine Drive, about 200 feet west of the intersection with NE 122nd Avenue.

Emergency first responders were called to the scene at 2:20 p.m., and saw the awful the results of the smashup.

This SUV is almost unrecognizable, after it crashed into a truck.

An eastbound semi tractor and refrigerated trailer rig was mostly off the pavement on the south side of the street, and the trailer was canted high into the air.

The SUV was in the center of the road, with the front smashed in.

“It looked to me like the car – it was quite a ways ahead of me – drifted over the center line,” said Enoch Waverton, who said he was westbound in a company van when the crash occurred. “The semi-truck coming at us tried to miss the car, but there isn’t much shoulder along this part of Marine Drive,” he added.

“It didn’t take long to get the driver out of the car; and I was happy to see the person leaving in an ambulance, not a coroner’s truck,” Waverton told East Portland News. “It’s a miracle the driver survived that crash.”

Police begin their investigation of this crash.

The crew of Portland Fire & Rescue Cully Station Engine 12 was on scene, and the firefighter paramedics of Mill Park Station Truck 7 arrived not long after.

Truck 7’s crew used their powerful, portable Holmatro Rescue Tools and pry bars remove the SUV’s driver from the wreckage and get him readied for transport, reportedly with traumatic injuries, to Emanuel Hospital.

Other firefighters used the braces carried on their trucks to keep the trailer from toppling over. Fortunately, the semi tractor’s saddle tanks did not rupture during the crash.

Although off the road, the semi truck remains upright and intact, its driver uninjured.

“The semi-truck driver was not injured,” said Portland Police Bureau Public Information Officer Sgt. Pete Simpson.

About the crash itself, Simpson said, “Preliminary information indicates that the SUV and semi-truck drivers collided head-on. The Traffic Division’s Major Crash Team responded and conducted an investigation.”

After the fire rigs leave, investigators begin trying to sort out how this wreck happened.

© 2016 David F. Ashton ~ East Portland News

 

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