A chain-reaction crash on southbound Interstate 5 in Linn County sent five people to the hospital early Tuesday and left a blue Freightliner vacuum truck overturned after it rolled over a silver Toyota sedan.
Kevin Patrick Dickey said he was driving 70 mph in a silver Infiniti sedan and moved into the left lane to pass the vacuum truck. The Infiniti then rear-ended the Toyota, pushing it into the Freightliner and setting off the rollover at milepost 208.
That chain of impacts is why five people wound up in the hospital. The Toyota driver and two passengers were taken by ambulance, while the Freightliner driver and a passenger were taken by private vehicle. The crash also shut down the simple assumption that a pass on a highway is a routine maneuver; on this stretch of Interstate 5, it turned into a multi-vehicle wreck with a truck on its side and a car pinned underneath it.
The Toyota driver said he was traveling southbound when he was struck from behind and pushed into the side of a large truck. The Freightliner driver said the impact caused him to lose control, and the truck slid into the right shoulder before overturning. Oregon State Police later said Dickey was arrested on a warrant and cited for careless driving, a sharp contrast with his account of a passing move in the left lane.
The Freightliner was towed by A Plus Towing for community caretaking, and the Infiniti and Toyota were towed by Webfoot Towing for community caretaking. For the people sent to the hospital, the key unanswered point is not whether the crash was severe — the rollover and ambulance transports answer that — but whether the warrant arrest will lead to anything beyond the careless-driving citation as the case moves forward.
