Sometimes the picture says it all. 
 
 For Kaleb Whitby, the picture says a little too much. 
 
 He'd rather not think about it -- the semi-trucks flattening his Chevy Silverado like a panini press. 
 
 Amid the tangled steel after the predawn crash near Baker City sat Whitby: intact, trapped and full of questions. 
 
 "Thank God that I'm still alive," Whitby said. "Now I've got to go figure out why." 
 
 *** 
 
 More than 100 people were involved in the Saturday morning pileup on Interstate 84, about 10 miles east of Baker City. At least three separate collisions involving more than 20 vehicles, most of them semi-trucks, injured a dozen people. 
 
 All 12 were initially treated at Saint Alphonsus Medical Center in Baker City. The most severely injured was transferred to OHSU Hospital in Portland and listed in critical condition. Six others remained hospitalized Saturday afternoon: Two were in stable condition in Baker City, and four were transferred to a sister hospital in Boise. 
 
 Black ice, heavy winds, fog and cold weather combined into what were extremely hazardous conditions. 
 
 Oregon State Police Sgt. Kyle Hove said there have been plenty of bad crashes on I-84. Nine people died in a charter bus crash in 2012 near Pendleton. But the photos from this incident are dramatic, and telling. 
 
 Hove estimated 50 vehicles were trapped on the eastbound stretch of highway but then lost count. He said he was distracted by the 100 or so people on the scene, plus 10 troopers and emergency personnel. 
 
 "I think we're fortunate that there weren't any fatalities here," Hove said. 
 
 None, perhaps, feels more fortunate than 27-year-old Kaleb Whitby. 
 
 *** 
 
 Whitby had to be in Council, Idaho, by 9 a.m. Mountain Time. He left his pregnant wife and their 2-year-old son back in Washington's Tri-Cities area -- Pasco, Kennewick and Richland. The farmer had been on the road for a while, and still had more than 100 miles to go. He had two truckloads of cattle waiting for him in Council. 
 
 Headed up a slight hill into a curve, Whitby decided to pass the semi-truck in front of him, but then thought better of it. The fog was too thick. He backed off. 
 
 When he rounded the curve and started descending, Whitby saw the semi again -- but this time it was jackknifed across the interstate. He swerved to the right, but ended up hitting the back end of the trailer. It flipped him around, and instantly his truck stalled -- leaving him splayed out with his passenger side facing oncoming traffic. 
 
 Then the headlights of an oncoming semi-truck filled the window frame. 
 
 "I just braced and hoped that everything would be all right," Whitby said. 
 
 He prayed, and wondered if it was his time. Ten seconds went by. 
 
 The truck bore down on him. 
 
 *** 
 
 After the semi slammed into him, Whitby opened his eyes to the sight of shattered glass. The steering column was lodged in his right hip. 
 
 He was upright again and still in the driver's seat. But the truck as he knew it was gone. 
 
 "I just kept telling myself to calm down," Whitby said. 
 
 He took out his Leatherman pocketknife to cut away his seat belt and dislodge the steering column from his side. 
 
 He shouted for help. 
 
 *** 
 
 Sergi Karplyuk was already pretty familiar with I-84 and how dicey it could get in bad weather. 
 
 The 32-year-old trucker had been driving professionally only for two months, and the trip from Pasco to Boise was going slowly. 
 
 As Karplyuk navigated the same curve and slight descent Whitby traveled minutes earlier, a semi-truck wall met him, blocking the entire road. 
 
 Karplyuk swerved left and struck the guardrail. 
 
 His truck disabled, Karplyuk got out of the cab. 
 
 That's when he saw the barrier wasn't one semi-truck, but two. Sandwiched in between them -- Kaleb Whitby. 
 
 Good thing I didn't hit the trailer smack in the middle, Karplyuk recalled thinking. That guy would've been dead. 
 
 Update: The freeway has been reopened. 
 
 *** 
 
 The two men who started their journey near the Tri-Cities in Southeast Washington were the final drivers in the pileup that made national news Saturday and brought together strangers in the predawn January cold. 
 
 Karplyuk asked Whitby if he could snap a picture of his steel sandwich, the farmer looking sideways at the camera with remarkable calm. 
 
 He could finally relax, Whitby said, knowing that no other semi-truck was barreling down the hill toward him. 
 
 About 30 minutes after flipping his truck, Whitby was free and among the sea of others who had largely escaped serious injury. He and Karplyuk pitched in to help other travelers and the stream of emergency personnel who arrived afterward. Hove credited onlookers for pitching in, saying their work might have saved lives. 
 
 Afterward, Whitby went to the hospital for a checkup. 
 
 "I've got two Band-Aids on my right ring finger," he said. "And a little bit of ice on my left eye." 
 
 His parents picked him up, and they planned to head back to the Tri-Cities. He said he can't wait to hug his wife and son. 
 
 He doesn't know what to think about Saturday morning. 
 
 "That was my first accident," Whitby said. 
 
 UPDATE: This story was updated with accurate distance from the crash site to Baker City 
 
 --Andrew Theen 
 
 atheen@oregonian.com 
 
 503-294-4026 
 
 @cityhallwatch ||||| (CNN) On the foggy, icy Oregon interstate, Kaleb Whitby plowed into the back of a jackknifed semi truck, flipping his pickup. 
 
 Then the real horror came: the sight of another tractor-trailer zooming straight toward him. 
 
 "When I saw those lights coming, I knew he was going to hit me," Whitby said. 
 
 "And then I closed my eyes and prayed that everything turned out OK. That was all I could do." 
 
 He gripped the steering wheel tightly as the second semi smashed through his pickup, crushing it like a soda can. 
 
 "It was just metal crunching and glass. It was just all fast and loud." 
 
 Whitby told CNN's "New Day" that he was a man of faith. 
 
 "I do believe, and I'm very firm in that, and I just held on to the wheel as tight as I could, tucked my head and just kept praying the whole time. After he hit, I just hoped that it would be over with soon," he said. 
 
 The crash left only two things intact: The marred shell surrounding Whitby's seat, and Whitby, who was pinned between the two trucks. 
 
 "When the second truck hit my back end, it spun my bed underneath the first trailer that I hit and continued to swing my nose around, and I guess put my nose underneath the second trailer. And as that trailer came around, it just kind of pushed me down and further into that -- that small V where you can actually see both the trailers within arm's reach on both sides. And so if they would've pushed me even a foot, it would have crushed me," the 27-year-old father said. 
 
 But he was alive. And alert. And nearly scratch-free. 
 
 Whitby was part of a 26-vehicle pileup Saturday on Interstate 84 outside Baker City, Oregon. 
 
 "This is the biggest crash I have seen in a while," Oregon State Police Sgt. Kyle Hove said. "It was extremely slick out there. One semi that spun around on the black ice started the chain reaction." 
 
 About a dozen people were injured, including two seriously. But there were no fatalities. 
 
 "It's surprising no one died in this," Hove said. 
 
 Before trying to wiggle out, Whitby decided to let the sound of traffic subside "to make sure things were OK." 
 
 Then passers-by came to help. "One guy pulled my feet out just enough so I could slide out of the car." 
 
 Whitby's injuries? A bruise on his left eyebrow and a few scratches on his right hand. 
 
 He told "New Day" he thanked God for his survival. 
 
 "I don't have the answers, and if I did, I probably wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now. When things like that happen, and what I've kinda come to realize, is that it is a miracle and that I need to take that into my life and remember it, and now I need to figure out who I need to be in this life and what I need to accomplish. 
 
 "Because how many people don't get the chance -- a second chance -- at escaping a situation like that?" ||||| BAKER CITY, Ore. (AP) — Black ice is believed to be the cause of a freeway pileup involving more than a dozen tractor-trailers that left 12 people injured Saturday in eastern Oregon, police said. 
 
 This photo provided by the Oregon Department of Transportation shows the scene of an accident on I-84 in Oregon Saturday, Jan. 17, 2015. Black ice is believed to be the cause of a freeway pileup involving... (Associated Press) 
 
 This photo provided by the Oregon Department of Transportation shows the scene of an accident on I-84 in Oregon Saturday, Jan. 17, 2015. Black ice is believed to be the cause of a freeway pileup involving... (Associated Press) 
 
 The 26-vehicle pileup left a long stretch of Interstate 84 closed for most of the day as crews worked to clean spilled diesel fuel and clear away dozens of vehicles that were either damaged or stranded. 
 
 12 people were treated for injuries at a Baker City hospital, with four of them then going to other hospitals with more serious injuries, Oregon State Police Sgt. Kyle Hove said. Police had initially reported just four people hurt. There were no fatalities. 
 
 The crash occurred shortly before 5 a.m. east of Baker City, about 130 miles northwest of Boise, Idaho. 
 
 Hove arrived on the scene to find "a sheet of ice" on the roadway. Troopers are still investigating, but Hove said he believes it was a chain-reaction crash. 
 
 "A couple of the trucks came upon the black ice, and they jackknifed and crashed into each other. And it just continued to escalate," Hove told The Associated Press by phone. 
 
 Authorities updated their report hours after the crash, increasing the number of vehicles directly involved from 20 to 26, and saying that the pileup left 50 to 70 vehicles stranded at the scene. 
 
 There were several separate collisions over a stretch of about three-quarters of a mile in the eastbound lanes, Hove said. He said many of the damaged vehicles were tractor-trailers, and several spilled their loads. 
 
 Two trucks were transporting hazardous materials. Their cargo did not spill, but crews had to clean up diesel from the trucks' fuel tanks. 
 
 "We understand it's frustrating when the freeway is closed like this," said Tom Srandberg, a spokesman for the Oregon Department of Transportation. "Our primary concern is safety, and (we) want to make sure everything is cleared by our hazmat folks before we let any traffic through the areas." 
 
 Interstate 84 links Salt Lake City with Portland, Oregon, and is the primary east-west highway through eastern Oregon. The eastbound lanes were closed for several hours but officials said at least one lane was reopening Saturday night. Westbound lanes were closed temporarily near the crash site.
– Twenty-six vehicles piled up early yesterday amid a dangerous mix of black ice, wind, and fog on an Oregon highway—a dozen of those vehicles were semis, and two of them combined to make what the Oregonian is likening to a "panini" out of Kaleb Whitby's Chevy Silverado. Whitby plowed into the back of a jack-knifed semi as the wreck was unfolding, and flipped. Then he looked up. "When I saw those lights coming, I knew he was going to hit me," he tells CNN. "And then I closed my eyes and prayed that everything turned out OK. That was all I could do." Somebody was listening, because after the tractor-trailer slammed into Whitby's truck and the other semi—"It was just metal crunching and glass. It was just all fast and loud"—two things remained. The shell of Whitby's cab, and Whitby himself; the 27-year-old farmer walked away with two Band-Aids. The other miracle? While 12 people were injured in the wreck, as one state police sergeant puts it: "It's surprising no one died in this." Highway 84 was shut while officials cleaned up diesel spilled from the tractor-trailers, but the AP notes that two trucks carrying hazardous materials did not spill. As for Whitby, he gets to return to his home in Washington, his wife, 2-year-old son, and baby on the way. "Thank God that I'm still alive," he tells the Oregonian. "Now I've got to go figure out why." Click through to the Oregonian for pictures of Whitby in his mutilated cab.