A truck driver was reported in critical condition at Central Washington Hospital in Wenatchee after being extricated Friday morning from a semi delivery truck that had gone off the road two miles up McNeil Canyon Road.
Orondo Fire reported on Facebook that they responded Friday morning at 8:20 to the report of a semi accident. On arrival, firefighters found a semi delivery truck with severe damage on its top down into the canyon.
The driver of the truck was entrapped in the wreckage. Two extrication crews worked 40 minutes to free the driver from the truck. The crews worked cutting and bending metal from opposite sides of the semi with jaws of life tools to access the driver in the middle, a guard rail piercing the cab which had to be cut and removed.
Once the driver was freed from the truck, he was carried up the hillside to a waiting ambulance who then transported the patient to the top of the hill where a helicopter was waiting to transport the patient to Central Washington Hospital.
Fourteen emergency responders arrived on the second alarm from Orondo Fire, including Chelan Fire and Rescue, Mansfield Fire, Lake Chelan Health Ambulance and the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, as well as Douglas County Transportation. The sheriff is investigating the cause of the accident.