Two people were killed and four were injured Wednesday, Oct. 19, following a series of collisions on Interstate 5 between Albany and Harrisburg that closed major portions of the artery for eight hours.
Phillip Frye, 29, of Portland, died in that morning’s fog-heavy multiple-vehicle crash, the Oregon State Police reported. Details were not available. A total of four unidentified subjects were taken to area hospitals throughout the day, one in serious condition.
Later that afternoon, shortly after 2 p.m., according to the OSP, 31-year-old Pritpal Singh, of Sacramento, Calif., stopped his Freightliner truck in the interstate’s slow lane southbound near milepost 219 south of Shedd for the earlier crashes. He was hit by a second Freightliner, driven by 63-year-old Kirpal Singh (no relation), of Yuba City, Calif.
The latter caught fire and caused a chain reaction rear-ender involving a Nissan Armada, driven by 36-year-old Patricia Foster, of Central Point, and a Ford Focus, driven by 55-year-old Kevin Loomis, of Norway, Mich.
Kirpal Singh suffered fatal injuries and was pronounced dead. The other involved parties were not injured, police said.
The Halsey/Shedd Fire Department and Oregon Department of Transportation assisted at the scene.
The initial collisions were reported shortly before 8 a.m. Wednesday. According to the OSP, some 15 to 20 commercial and 45 passenger vehicles were involved. The Department of Environmental Quality and HAZMAT worked with six of the commercial vehicles as they leaked fluids onto the roadway. The Oregon Department of Transportation temporarily dropped the cable barrier to detour traffic caught in the gridlock, and school buses from Eugene transported between 30 and 40 stranded motorists to Pioneer Villa at Halsey/Brownsville exit 216.
The series of incidents closed the interstate’s southbound lanes at that exit. More collisions were reported later Wednesday afternoon, resulting in closures between milepost 228, the Hwy. 34 Corvallis-Lebanon exit and milepost 211. In a separate news release, the Oregon Department of Transportation announced that a jack-knifed semi truck closed the southbound interstate south of Highway 20 in Albany.
By 4:30 p.m., one lane of southbound Interstate 5 reopened south of Albany, beginning at milepost 231. Traffic was detoured to Hwy. 99E at Hwy. 34, the Corvallis exit. Roughly 45 minutes later, ODOT reported that the southbound interstate was open south of OR 228 beginning at milepost 231.
Several public safety agencies, including the Linn County Sheriff’s Office, assisted. Members of the Oregon State Police Collision Reconstruction Unit were also on scene.