Youth Leader Killed, 6 Injured in Off-Road Accident

ENTERPRISE (AP) - Authorities say a youth leader died and six teens were injured when a pickup plunged 350 feet into a ravine in Wallowa County.

Sheriff Fred Steen says investigators believe the pickup tried to take a shortcut uphill on Tuesday afternoon, lost traction in the mud and slid back down and over the edge of the ravine.

The driver, 38-year-old Jeffery Alan Gaertner of Jackson Hole, Wyo., died, and 17-year-old Isaiah Buck of Lostine was in critical condition in an Idaho hospital.

Authorities say Gaertner had often led young people on camping trips in the Imnaha Canyon.

Friends told the East Oregonian newspaper that Gaertner grew up in Oregon and was a youth pastor in Milton-Freewater and Wallowa County before he moved to Wyoming.