One dead, four injured in accident

Mail Tribune (Medford, OR — Wayback)

2002-02-28

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One dead, four injured in accident By MARK FREEMAN MYRTLE POINT - A Grants Pass man who witnesses said was driving recklessly on a windy Coos County highway lost control of his pickup truck Sunday and crashed it into an oncoming van, killing a passenger in the pickup and seriously injuring two Coos Bay people in the van, authorities said. The pickup's driver, 24-year-old Lymon Cecil Young, also was seriously hurt during the 11:49 a.m. wreck that closed a section of Highway 42 near Myrtle Point for about three hours, according to the Oregon State Police. The van's passenger was pronounced dead at the scene, but his body had not been identified as of Monday evening, the OSP said. The wreck occurred on a windy stretch of Highway 42, which is the main route between Coos Bay and Interstate 5 near Roseburg, about 36 miles east of Coos Bay. Witnesses told OSP troopers that Young was speeding and making unsafe car passes while driving his new Toyota Tacoma pickup west on Highway 42 just before the accident occurred, police said. Young apparently lost control of the pickup on an S-curve, rolling the pickup several times sideways and into the path of an eastbound van driven by Helen France Hisel, 52, of Coos Bay. Hisel tried to swerve the van around the tumbling pickup, which struck the van's passenger side and rolled over the van's top before coming to rest, police said. Hisel was taken to the Coquille Valley Hospital in Coquille, where she was held overnight for observation and released early Monday, a hospital spokeswoman said. Sarah Hooage, an 11-year-old Coos Bay girl who was in the van's right-front seat, suffered serious injuries in the crash. She was whisked from the scene by an ambulance to a nearby clearing and airlifted by helicopter to Portland. Sarah was listed in critical condition Monday evening in the pediatric intensive-care unit at Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, a hospital spokeswoman said. Young had surgery Sunday night in Coquille to help repair a severely damaged right leg, a Coquille Valley Hospital spokeswoman said. He was then air-lifted early Monday to OHSU, where he was placed in the intensive-care unit. An OSHU spokeswoman said no condition was listed for him. Troopers on Monday did not reveal whether they intended to arrest Young in connection with the crash. Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected]     Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.