A 57-year-old woman died Monday evening after a head-on crash shut down Highway 30 near Scappoose for hours, with investigators saying a westbound Subaru crossed into oncoming traffic and slammed into her Volkswagen Bug. The driver of the Subaru was rushed to the hospital with serious injuries. The crash forced authorities to close multiple lanes of the busy highway corridor while they worked the scene.
Rachel Ann Mitchell, 57, died in the crash, according to KGW, which reported she was behind the wheel of the red Volkswagen Bug when the green Subaru Outback, traveling westbound, crossed into the eastbound lanes and struck her head-on. As first reported by KPTV, the crash happened near milepost 18 in Multnomah County, just south of the Columbia County line.
Reports differ on exactly when the collision occurred Monday evening — accounts put it around or just after 6 p.m. Whatever the precise moment, the outcome was the same: a fatal head-on impact on Highway 30.
Driver Hospitalized, Lanes Shut for Hours
The driver of the Subaru suffered serious injuries and was hospitalized, the KGW report said.
All eastbound lanes of Highway 30 were affected and westbound traffic was reduced to a single lane, according to KGW. The shutdown rippled through evening commute traffic for about six hours while crews investigated and cleared the scene, per the station's account.
Oregon State Police led the response, with assistance from the Scappoose Fire Department, Scappoose Police Department and the Oregon Department of Transportation, according to Columbia County Spotlight. The crash affected all eastbound lanes and reduced westbound traffic to a single lane.
A Stretch of Highway With a History
An earlier fatal four-vehicle crash occurred on Highway 30 near milepost 85 in Clatsop County on Sept. 12, according to the Daily Astorian. In that crash, a Ford Ranger crossed into the eastbound lane for reasons that were never determined and struck multiple vehicles, killing its driver and injuring three others — one seriously and two with minor injuries, the paper reported. That collision involved 18 occupants across four vehicles and triggered a mass-casualty event response.
In the wake of that September crash, a community member began organizing a group called Safe Highway 30, hoping to secure a safety-corridor designation from the Oregon Department of Transportation for the stretch near the crash site, the Daily Astorian reported. Such a designation could bring additional law enforcement presence and doubled traffic fines to the road, per the same report.
Highway 30 has drawn safety scrutiny for years. A five-mile section between St. Helens and Scappoose previously carried a safety-corridor designation, and ODOT had reported the average crash rate on that stretch running 21% below the statewide average for comparable roads, according to the Tillamook Headlight Herald. Oregon State Police had also planned extra speed enforcement along that section beginning in 2015, the paper noted, and centerline rumble strips were planned for installation between mileposts 18 and 31 the following year as part of broader efforts to reduce crashes.
