ALBANY, Ore. — Seven people were killed and many more injured in a multi-vehicle crash Thursday on Interstate 5 in a western Oregon agricultural area, police said.
Officers responded around 2:05 p.m. to the crash involving two semi-trucks and a passenger vehicle in the northbound lanes about 7 miles north of Albany near the Santiam rest area, Santiam State Police said. Oregon in a statement.
Seven adults died, police said, but did not specify how many were injured.
The passenger vehicle involved was a pickup truck, the Albany Democrat-Herald reported.
Plastic-covered bodies could be seen in a nearby field and the Marion County Medical Examiner was at the scene, the newspaper said. A Life Flight helicopter left the scene around 2:45 p.m.
Police and firefighters put a blue tarp over the wrecked truck and put up a barrier near one of the trucks to block the view of the scene, according to the Democrat-Herald.
The van appeared to have been crushed between the trucks, a witness said The Statesman’s Journal.
“Judging by the damage, it appeared that the truck was trapped,” Adrián González said. «He was hit very hard.»
Two Life Flight helicopters landed and took people away while paramedics treated others on the ground, González told the newspaper.
The cause of the crash was under investigation.
The northbound lanes of I-5 reopened Thursday night after being closed due to the accident, state transportation officials said.
Albany is located between Salem and Eugene and is about 70 miles south of Portland. I-5 is the major north-south interstate highway on the West Coast.