SUV soars off McLoughlin into Oaks Bottom

Early Thursday evening, August 8th, Central Precinct officers and PFR emergency first responders converged on the intersection of S.E. McLoughin and Holgate on the report of an incident described as “a blue truck, nose down toward the Springwater Trail, about 50 feet down the embankment.”

Apparently the vehicle had run up the substantial berm on the “jug handle” exit from southbound Highway 99E exit to Holgate, and had gone up over the edge.

Scrambling down the steep embankment, PF&R rescue crews reported seeing a man crawling out the back window of the vehicle. Eventually, by means of a high-angle rope rescue, they managed to get the man up the hillside and into an awaiting ambulance above on McLoughlin Boulevard, so he could be rushed to a hospital for treatment.

Later, PPB Public Information Officer Sergeant Kevin Allen filled in the story for THE BEE, from the Police Bureau’s records. “This was a single vehicle crash. A 2008 Lincoln Navigator left the road, and went down the hill on the west side of S.E. McLoughlin Boulevard toward the Springwater Corridor Trail. The driver was rescued from the steep incline by firefighters from Portland Fire & Rescue.

“Strangely, officers reported that the same driver had been in a previous car crash a couple of hours earlier, a few hundred feet east – on S.E. Holgate Boulevard, just west of Milwaukie Avenue. However, he was driving a different vehicle in that incident.”

Although the driver was taken to a hospital by ambulance with non-life-threatening injuries, “he was uncooperative with police and hospital staff, so it’s unclear what led to the crash,” Sergeant Allen told THE BEE. “The driver was not cited or arrested.”

The lack of a citation or arrest indicates that there was nobody seriously injured in the crash, and that there is currently no reason to believe that the crash was anything but just an accident. But two crashes in the same vicinity by the same driver in two different vehicles on the same day is certainly a curious situation – so the incident is still under investigation.

If you or someone you know witnessed this strange accident, please email – crimetips@police.portlandoregon.gov – and make reference to Case No. 24-199156.