monster truck Oregon crash

Image source: CNN

An out-of-control monster truck crashed into the stands during a race in Oregon Saturday, injuring three people who were sitting alongside the dirt track, KVAL-TV reported.

The three people hurt at the outdoor Harrisburg MotorSports Complex were taken to a hospital in nearby Eugene with non-life-threatening injuries.

According to KVAL, the driver of the truck told Linn County Sheriff’s Office deputies the back wheels of his Ford truck spun out in a mud hole, causing the vehicle to fishtail and run toward the stands. The front of the truck went over the barricade into three spectators seated in folding chairs.

“There wasn’t anything he could do to stop it,” Dan Mills, the owner of the complex who was serving as the announcer, told the Associated Press. “This was my worst fear – what happened … It was the freakiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Mills said he had been in touch with the three victims, whose names were not immediately released. He told the AP they included a father and son and a man thought to be in his early 20s.

He said the truck did not actually run over any of the spectators but that the front end only “pushed them back.”

“I think they just basically got hit by the front of the truck,” he said.

Onlooker Dustin Earls captured the incident on video and told CNN he thought at first it was just part of the show.

“The truck got a little wild and he hit the mud pit,” he said. “I thought, ‘This guy’s just messing around; he’ll hit his brakes right here.’”

But that didn’t happen; the truck instead went careening into the spectators. Earls said the driver of the truck immediately jumped out to see if anyone was hurt.

“He wanted to know if everything was okay,” he said. “He was so concerned. He said, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe what happened.’”