ALBANY,Oregon– According to the farmworkers union in Oregon, the victims of one of the state’s deadliest highway crashes were farmworkers.
These individuals were traveling in a van during the typical commuting hour for agricultural laborers, who often return home after working in the harvest.
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Authorities have not yet released the names of the seven who died or the four who were injured when a semitruck ran off Interstate 5 on Thursday and slammed into the van as it was parked on the roadside near Albany, in an agricultural area of the Willamette Valley.
The Woodburn-based PCUN, a union representing farmworkers, confirmed that the 11 individuals in the vehicle involved in the crash were indeed farmworkers.
The union expressed its support for the families of the victims, with whom they have been in contact, and offered condolences to all those affected by the tragic incident.
“At this time, families are asking for safer roads for workers commuting after a hard day’s work,” Reyna Lopez, the union’s executive director, was quoted as saying.
The driver of the truck, Lincoln Clayton Smith, 52, of North Highlands, California, was arrested Friday on suspicion of manslaughter, driving under the influence of intoxicants, reckless driving and assault, police said. He was being held without bail in Marion County Jail.
It wasn’t clear whether Smith’s case had been assigned to the state public defender’s office or a specific attorney.
The office didn’t immediately respond to a message asking about that, and a lawyer whose name appears in court documents said she had not formally been assigned the case and could not comment.
At Smith’s arraignment, a district attorney said he had refused a field sobriety test and was unable to focus and answer basic questions, the Salem Statesman Journal reported.
The prosecutor also said Smith acknowledged taking “speed” the day before the crash and was in possession of methamphetamine, according to the paper.
The DA said witnesses reported the truck had been weaving on and off the road as it traveled in the northbound lanes Thursday afternoon before it plowed into the van without braking first, according to the Statesman Journal.
The van was then pushed into the back of another truck parked in front of it, Oregon State Police said.
All the victims were passengers in the van. Six died at the scene and one more died after being airlifted to a hospital, according to Oregon State Police. Information on the condition of the four injured has not been made public.
Bodies were seen covered in plastic in a nearby field after the crash, the Albany Democrat-Herald reported.
The crash is one of the deadliest in Oregon in recent years.
Tragic accidents have occurred in various parts of Oregon, resulting in multiple fatalities. In August 2018, a head-on collision in Harney County claimed the lives of a family of seven, including five young children.
Additionally, in December 2012, a tour bus accident on icy Interstate 84 near Pendleton led to the deaths of nine individuals after the bus crashed through a guardrail and plummeted down a steep embankment.
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Another devastating crash took place in 1988 on I-5 near Albany, resulting in the loss of seven lives and injuring 37 others in a fiery 23-vehicle pileup. Albany, located between Salem and Eugene, lies approximately 70 miles (113 kilometers) south of Portland, while I-5 serves as a crucial north-south interstate highway along the West Coast.
