Two coast teens killed, third hurt in Hwy. 101 head-on crash

Two Coos Bay area 18-year-olds were killed and a 16-year-old from North Bend was seriously injured Sunday afternoon in a head-on crash on Highway 101 that involved an Oregon State Police pickup and sent a trooper to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, authorities said.

OSP dispatchers got a call around 1:30 p.m. on a three-vehicle crash near milepost 241 on Highway 101, Coos County District Attorney R. Paul Frasier said in a news release. Troopers and sheriff’s deputies responded to the scene, south of Coos Bay.

The initial investigation, including interviews with several witnesses, indicated the teen’s Mitsubishi was heading south on the highway “at an excessive rate of speed” when the driver apparently lost control while coming around a corner, the DA said.

The car crossed the center line and collided head-on with an OSP pickup truck driven by an on-duty OSP Fish and Wildlife Division trooper, Frasier said.

The driver of a third car heading north on the highway tried to avoid the crash and almost did so but was damaged when it struck the driver side of the OSP pickup and Mitsubishi.

The driver and front-seat passenger in the Mitsubishi, 18-year-old males living in the Coos Bay area, died at the scene, the prosecutor said.

A 16-year-old girl believed to be from North Bend was in the rear of the car and was cut out of the wreckage and taken first to Bay Area Hospital in Coos Bay, then flown to PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend in Springfield with life-threatening injuries.

The trooper also was taken to the Coos Bay hospital, but was expected to be released Sunday evening. The four people in the third car – a man, woman and two children – were not injured, Frasier said.

The names of those involved were withheld pending notification of families, the DA said.