Albany, Oregon — Seven people were killed and several others injured in a multi-vehicle crash Thursday on Interstate 5 in a farming area in western Oregon, police said.
Oregon State Police said in a statement that officers responded at approximately 2:05 p.m. to the crash of two trucks and a passenger vehicle in the northbound lanes about 7 miles north of Albany, near the Santiam rest area.
Police said seven adults died, but did not say how many were injured.
The Albany Democrat-Herald reported that the passenger car was a pickup truck.
Bodies covered in plastic could be seen in a nearby field, the paper said, and the Marion County coroner was on the scene. The Life Flight helicopter left the scene at approximately 2:45 p.m
The Democracy Herald reported that police and fire officials put a blue sheet over the wrecked truck and placed a barrier near one of the trucks to prevent the scene from being seen.
A witness told the Statesman Journal that the truck appeared to have been smashed between trucks.
“Judging by the damage, it looks like the truck was pinned,” Adrian Gonzalez said. “It was hit hard.”
Commercial driver Phil Price In an interview with CBS Portland, Oregon affiliate KOIN-TV The scene was heartbreaking. “(I thought) the first was, ‘I hope there are no deaths,’ and of course, there are quite a few, so it’s more upsetting because everyone has their families and they have to lose someone today,” he said.
Gonzalez told the newspaper that two Life Flight helicopters landed and took people away while paramedics treated others on the ground.
The cause of the accident is still under investigation.
Albany is located between Salem and Eugene and is about 70 miles south of Portland. I-5 is the major north-south highway on the West Coast.
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