Miracle twist that saved 70,000 live salmon after truck crash

But in a miraculous twist of fortune, over 70,000 of the fish landed in a nearby creek and are expected to survive.

“The accident occurred on a sharp corner with the 53-foot [16-metre] truck rolling onto the passenger side, skidding on its side on the pavement, and then going over a rocky embankment causing it to roll onto its roof,” says the news release.

The driver received minor injuries, according to the department.

The truck overturned close to Lookingglass Creek, a tributary of the Grande Ronde River. Around 77,000 young salmon made it into the creek and are expected to return in future years to spawn.

Not all of the fish were so lucky: 25,529 smolts died. Their bodies were recovered either in the tanker or on the streambank, according to the news release.

Salmon are raised at Lookingglass hatchery, then transported back and released to Imnaha to help combat threats to their population, according to Seth White, a professor in the department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Sciences at Oregon State University and director of the Oregon hatchery Research Center. “The Imnaha River spring Chinook Salmon population depends on hatcheries to sustain their numbers,” he told CNN in an email.

He explained that salmon are resilient animals, which will help many of them survive their unplanned tumble into the creek.

“In many ways salmon are very resilient and that’s why they survived millennia in a geologically active part of the world,” he told CNN.

“Many of the salmon that got spilled into the creek will likely survive because they’re adaptable—within limits—and can learn new environments quickly.”