DEPOE BAY,OR : Hagfish slime scene of five-car crash near Depoe Bay on Thursday, July 13, 2017

Several motorists involved in a multi-car crash with a flatbed truck found out what happened when you upset hagfish.

Oregon State Police and emergency workers responded to U.S. Highway 101 near Depoe Bay at milepost 131, for a crash involving a flatbed truck and five other vehicles around noon Thursday.

The 1993 Mitsubishi truck was being driven by Salvatore J. Tragale, 59, of Lincoln City. It was traveling northbound on US Highway 101.

Tragale was approaching roadway construction being completed by the Oregon Department of Transportation. An ODOT flagger had northbound traffic stopped and Tragale was unable to stop the vehicle.

The Mitsubishi was loaded with 13 containers of a net weight of 7,500 pounds of hagfish, commonly known as slime eels.

According to an OSP press release, the transfer of weight caused one of the containers to come off the truck bed and fly across the highway into the southbound lane.

The other containers separated from the bed of the truck and spilled onto the highway.

As a result, the flat bed completely separated from frame of the truck.

When the container struck the southbound vehicles, it caused a chain reaction pushing four vehicles into each other.

There were only minor injuries reported from Nissan, which was the first vehicle to be struck by the container. It was a 2017 Nissan driven by Kim Randall, 64, of Sun Lakes, Arizona.

The Nissan was pushed backward into a brown Honda CRV, driven by Rachel A. Craven, 37, of Toledo.

The CRV pushed into a white Ford Focus driven by Kristine Torp, 33, of Norway, and her passenger Melissa Waage, 30, also from Norway.

Finally, the Focus pushed into a 2017 Ford F150 driven by Kevin White, 67, of Tigard, and his passengers Brandon White, 31, and Donna White, 70, both of Tigard.

When hagfish become stressed, they secrete a slime, which covered the vehicles and the highway.

Depoe Bay Firefighters worked at cleaning up the highway by hosing the hagfish and slime off the roadway.

The highway has been re-opened after the clean-up.

Source :
Hagfish slime scene of five-car crash near Depoe Bay