Top 10 stories of the year — No. 4: Massive crash stretches almost 2 miles on Interstate 84 in Eastern Oregon
Published 1:00 pm Tuesday, December 27, 2022
- Carter Hyatt/Contributed Photo, FileThis Nissan Pathfinder belonging to the Hyatt family of Yelm, Washington, crashed Feb. 21, 2022, into the back of this Amazon trailer on Interstate 84 about 21 miles east of Pendleton. The crash was part of a series of wrecks that stretched almost 2 miles on the westbound side. The Hyatts were unharmed in the crash.
PENDLETON — Winter conditions Feb. 21 contributed to a series of crashes on Interstate 84 about 21 miles east of Pendleton that involved hundreds of travelers and a massive emergency response.
Oregon State Police and the Oregon Department of Transportation reported the wrecks stretched 1.75 miles and involved more than 170 vehicles. The crashes shut down the westbound and eastbound lanes of the freeway in Eastern Oregon.
OSP reported 17 patients were transported from the crash scene with an additional two who were transported after they arrived at the Pendleton Convention Center, which served as a reunification hub for people in the crash.
There were no deaths.
Officers at the scene heard crashes occurring behind them, OSP reported. Carter Hyatt and his family were returning to their home in Washington when their vehicle became part of the wrecks. The Hyatts also heard those crashes.
“Bam, bam, bam,” Carter Hyatt said. “They just kept hitting.”
St. Anthony Hospital communications director Emily Smith said the hospital received 13 patients. Of those patients, 10 were treated and released, two were admitted but later discharged and one was transferred to another hospital.
School buses took groups from the crashes to the Pendleton Convention Center, where staff provided rooms for people to wait for rides from family or friends or made arrangements for other accommodations.
The Hyatts said they had never experienced anything like this emergency, and they did not want to be in another.
Between the crash early afternoon Feb. 21 and early morning Feb. 22, OSP reported six tow companies removed the dozens of vehicles that had accumulated on the snowy road. The eastbound lanes reopened at about midnight, but the westbound lanes were not clear until about 6 a.m.
The East Oregonian is counting down its top 10 local news stories of 2022 (barring, of course, another major news story before the end of the year).
We derived our top 10 from analytics about what was popular online as well as our sense of what was newsworthy. Our top 10 contains a variety of stories, and we also encourage you to share your ideas for top 10 local news stories.
