Enterprise man improving after Crook Co. motorcycle crash

A 59-year-old Enterprise man was flown to a Bend hospital with serious injuries after a motorcycle crash east of Prineville Thursday evening, Crook County sheriff’s deputies reported.

Deputies and Crook County Fire and Rescue paramedics were dispatched shortly before 6 p.m. to the reported crash on Northeast Ochoco Highway at milepost 27, near the intersection of Grant Lane by Ochoco Reservoir, said Sgt. Travis Jurgens.

Arriving deputies found a black 1982 Yamaha XS 1100 motorcycle on its side on the shoulder of the north side of the highway, Jurgens said. The motorcycle operator, Owen Lester Holum, was lying on the ground a few feet away.

Holum was treated at the scene and taken by medics to Pioneer Memorial Hospital, then flown by Life Flight helicopter to St. Charles Bend, where a house supervisor said he was in critical condition in the intensive care unit Thursday night. He had improved to serious condition by Friday morning, according to the hospital.

An investigation determined that Holum had been heading west on the highway when the motorcycle drifted off the north side of the highway for as-yet unknown reasons, Jurgens said.

Holum, who was wearing a helmet, apparently was thrown from the motorcycle.

The investigation into the crash is continuing, the sergeant said.