SEQUIM — A teenage driver died after swerving to avoid a deer on a gravel road off Slab Camp Road late on Sunday evening.
His two passengers were injured. One was taken to Olympic Medical Center, and the other was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle from the Sequim airport, said Clallam County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. John Keegan.
Keegan declined to release names of those in the truck until the family of the boy who died was notified.
Without their names, their conditions could not be obtained from the hospitals Sunday night.
“They do appear to be local, and it appears that they have extended family throughout the county,” Keegan said.
Their exact ages were not clear on Sunday night.
The three were in a Ford F-250.
They were driving at about 5 p.m. down a wet gravel road — Forest Service Road 2875 — which branches off Slab Camp Road and at the end of which the camp used to be.
The campground is now closed.
The area is south of Sequim, off Lost Mountain Road.
After swerving to avoid the deer, the pickup crashed into a tree, Keegan said.
Detective Josh Ley, the traffic investigator at the scene, said the truck hit the tree with such force the bark on the opposite side of the trunk pinched off where the tree had bent backward.
“In that area, you are looking at a downhill slope, so you’re dealing with all of those dynamics,” said Keegan.
“And so what it appears is that when he went off the road to avoid the deer, it isn’t as hard packed on the side of the road and it also is downhill.
“So from that point, you’re dealing with a lot of forces of gravity working against you.
“It is like when someone’s car hits a puddle on one side of the road and starts to pull off to the side.”
The investigation is ongoing, Keegan said.
None of the three appeared to have been wearing seat belts, he said.
Keegan said why the trio was out on the forest road Sunday was unclear.
“There are a lot of trails, and kids go up there and go off-roading sometimes,” he said.
“There are a plethora of reasons they might have been up there.”
He said it did not appear that drugs or alcohol was a factor in the collision.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
