A Chevy Malibu traveling westbound on state Highway 14 snarled traffic near Interstate 5 early Tuesday when it got tangled beneath the trailer of a Freightliner, according to a Vancouver Fire Department spokesman.
The collision was reported at about 10 a.m., said Jim Flaherty. The car was so badly mangled that the 84-year-old driver had to be extricated from the passenger side door, Flaherty said.
Donald L. Crouch, a Camas resident, was injured and was rushed by AMR Northwest ambulance to Southwest Washington Medical Center. He was listed in satisfactory condition, a nursing supervisor said Tuesday night.
The gold-colored Chevy’s front end got hooked up at the trailer’s midpoint in the far left lane, Flaherty said.
Traffic was redirected to Interstate 205 for more than an hour after the wreck.
The Washington State Department of Transportation had to resort to guiding a single lane of traffic along the shoulder of Highway 14.
There was “quite a traffic tie-up,” Flaherty said.
There were no other injuries reported. The Washington State Patrol is investigating.
Troopers said later in a bulletin that Crouch had been driving west when traffic stopped ahead of him, including a 2006 Freightliner in the left lane driven by Dean T. Graves, 67, also of Camas.
Seeing the stopped traffic ahead, Crouch swerved from the left lane to the middle lane, nearly hitting another vehicle, then overcorrected his steering back to the left lane and lost control. His car then crashed into the truck trailer and went partially underneath it, the WSP bulletin said.
The crash was caused by inattention and Crouch was to be ticketed for driving too fast for road and traffic conditions, and for not wearing a seat belt, the bulletin said.
