An incident responder with the Oregon Department of Transportation had a close call with a huge tree and the entire episode was caught on dashcam.
As you can see in the video uploaded to Twitter, the incident responder was traveling along I-5 near Wolf Creek when a huge tree began to fall. A grey SUV managed to make it clear, but the dashcam-equipped vehicle wasn’t as lucky as part of the tree crashed into the windshield.
The driver escaped without injury and that’s fortunate as the outcome could have easily been much worse. That being said, the vehicle did suffer some damage although it remains unclear if only the windshield was smashed.
Say you’re driving and when a large tree begins to fall…you catch it all on your #dashcam. 😮 That’s what happened yesterday to one of our incident responders. #Thankful one was hurt! @ORStatePolice and a logging crew helped this not become an hours-long traffic incident. pic.twitter.com/wSuZrdXhAv
— OregonDOT (@OregonDOT) December 28, 2021
As luck would have it, employees of a private logging company were stuck in the traffic jam caused by the fallen tree. They were enlisted to help remove the tree and the Oregon Department of Transportation noted, if they had “not been there and willing to assist, the 1.5 hour delay would have been much longer.”
There’s no word on how tall the tree was, but photos of the scene show it covered both northbound lanes of the interstate. As a result, traffic would have been ground to a halt if it wasn’t for the logging company.
H/T to KTLA
Thank you to @ORStatePolice and the private logging company they found in the traffic queue for their help in quickly removing the tree from the I-5 NB near Wolf Creek yesterday. Had they not been there and willing to assist, the 1.5hr delay would have been much longer. pic.twitter.com/jJER5TojtI
— OregonDOT (@OregonDOT) December 28, 2021