PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A police officer was sent to the hospital after a driver lost control and hit his patrol car at a separate crash site Saturday morning in NE Portland, police said.
According to the Portland Police Bureau, the officer arrived to a crash scene around 6:29 a.m. where a silver sedan had collided with a wall on I-84 E near NE 33rd Avenue. Ten minutes later while the officer was waiting on a tow truck for the sedan, police said he reported his police vehicle had been hit from behind with multiple other cars involved.
In a press release sent Saturday morning, PPB said the driver of a green sedan had been going down the highway and couldn’t brake in time to avoid hitting the patrol car, which police said was blocking the right lane with its lights on.
The driver tried to emergency brake, lost control of the car, spun into the wall and kept spinning until hitting the police SUV facing forward, police said. The drivers of three other cars crashed trying to avoid the spinning sedan, leading to a 5-car pileup.
In a Tweet shared at 7:33 a.m., PPB said several people were injured but not “classified as trauma.” In the release sent three hours later, police said the officer and one passenger from one of the other cars involved were taken to the hospital and their injuries were not life-threatening.
PPB told KOIN 6 News that the bureau doesn’t yet know how many people were involved but no serious injuries were reported.
The officer was treated and released from the hospital. No update was given on the status of the injured passenger. The driver of the silver sedan reportedly walked away from the crash site and wasn’t found, police said.
No one has been cited in the accident and no arrests were made.
I-84 reopened to normal traffic around 8:30 a.m.