PORT ANGELES — Personnel from four agencies responded to a vehicle collision near Lake Crescent that left a woman dead.
Clallam Fire District 2 Deputy Chief Kevin Denton said it received a call around 1 p.m. Tuesday about a single car that had left the road about 3 miles west of Lake Crescent Lodge.
He said the four-door sedan appeared to have been heading east before coming to rest about 30 feet up the embankment on the south side of the highway, where it had lodged between some trees.
Along with Fire District 2, Clallam County Fire District 4, Olympic Ambulance and Olympic National Park rangers worked together at the scene.
“It was a complex situation,” Denton said. “My crews focused on extricating the patient and packaging them up at the [crash] site, and then the park rangers put together a rope system that we attached a stokes basket to, and we ended up lowering the patient down.”
Due to the complicated nature of the scene, it took about 35 minutes to get the woman out of the car and to paramedics waiting for her on the road.
In the meantime, Fire District 4 secured a landing zone at Lake Crescent Lodge, where the woman was transported by ambulance and transferred to Airlift Northwest for a flight to Seattle.
The woman was able to respond to emergency personnel at the scene, Denton said, but she later died.
“It was an unfortunate incident, but the crews did a great job and it was a great interagency call,” Denton said. “The park was very good to work with. It went as well as it could’ve for a bad situation.”
Because the collision occurred in Olympic National Park, it will have jurisdiction over any investigation.
The crash closed U.S. Highway 101 to traffic for about an hour.
The name of the woman was being withheld Wednesday until her family is notified.
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Reporter Paula Hunt can be reached by email at paula.hunt@peninsuladailynews.com.
