This story was updated at 2:55 p.m. Sept. 17, 2023, with additional details following the release of a BCSO report on the crash.
A pickup struck the rear of a dump truck loaded with rock Tuesday morning in Kings Valley and pinned the driver in the cab, Philomath Fire and Rescue reported.
Responders extricated the driver, a 25-year-old Albany man, from the heavily-damaged vehicle and was transported to Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center in Corvallis with non-life-threatening injuries. The dump truck driver, a 72-year-old Eddyville man, was reportedly not injured.
Philomath Fire and Rescue was dispatched to the scene at 7:36 a.m. at the intersection of Maxfield Creek Road and Ward Road, which is a little more than 3 miles east of Kings Valley Highway and located in the Hoskins-Kings Valley Rural Fire Protection District.
Kings Valley was the first to respond and reported that extrication would be needed, Philomath Fire and Rescue Deputy Fire Chief Rich Saalsaa said. Philomath sent an engine with a crew of three, a rescue vehicle with three personnel and Saalsaa as the duty officer to assist at the scene.
“He was pinned in his vehicle by the steering column that bent down from the force of the impact and trapped his left leg against the seat,” Saalsaa said, adding that the driver was alert. “To help free the patient, the driver door had to be removed with extraction tools and then cuts made in the frame to push the dash and steering column up and off the patient with a ram tool.”
After those maneuvers, Saalsaa said the driver was able to get out of the vehicle and was then assisted to a Corvallis Fire Department ambulance.
The Benton County Sheriff’s Office and Oregon State Police also assisted at the scene. BCSO is investigating the crash.
The road was closed for approximately 20 minutes while the extrication took place, Saalsaa said.