Compounding the loss, but why?

Serious Injury Crash - Highway 22 in Santiam Pass area

Oregon State Police - 02/23/08

The roadway was closed for about two hours while emergency responders provided medical care and investigated the crash.

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I regret the accident, I regret the pain and suffering to those impacted including the hundreds of people who were caught in the absurd 2 hour Road Closure.

Please consider that not everybody trapped on the mountain road (for ONLY two hours) were just out to buy a birthday card for grandma or to wander shop at Factory Outlet Stores.

I imagine that in the hundreds if not thousands of people delayed (while the Accident Investigators worked to determine if any of the occupants were wearing their seat belts) there were some hoping to catch the last flight out of Portland today and that to meet a cruise ship in Miami that sailed this evening. Where others may have been hurrying to say good bye to a dying parent, or in need of kidney dialysis, or pick-up a child who was traveling alone on Amtrak, or eat so as to stabilize their blood sugar, or suffered damaged their bladder, or those who were panicked by expecting mountain road travelers to arrive two hours earlier, or the overdue catering truck to serve a wedding party, or a medical patient in need of a prescription refill from a pharmacy that was closed when they arrived late. Need I go on?

And where did all this happen. In a cell phone dead zone for many.

It wasn't that many years ago the ODOT rule for Emergency Service Personnel was to Clear the Roadway as soon as the injured were removed and re-open the road to traffic and commerce.

But that was before the Government Empire Builders discovered the public and Legislature would tolerate extended road closures for Unknown Investigative purposes and sit there for hours without question.

This confirms the Oregon Department of Education has been successful in creating a generation of Sheepeople