Boxes of athletic shoes litter the area where two tractor-trailer rigs were involved in a collision along Interstate 84 in Oregon. A Michigan man died in the wreck. (Photo courtesy of Oregon State Police)

Oregon State Police identified the man who was killed as Kerry Ray Boatman of Marshall, Mich.

Troopers at the scene did not report any arrests, but said people caught trying to take shoes disrupted their investigation of the crash and made everything harder for officers and emergency responders.

"It interferes with the attention that they have to direct toward people who may have been injured," said Lt. Gregg Hastings of the Oregon State Police. It’s also illegal, he noted. "That was an unfortunate development that really disheartened the officers and the other emergency responders on the scene."

According to police, the collision happened about 7:10 p.m. Wednesday when an International tractor-trailer rig pulling the load of shoes failed to stop as it approached a Volvo tractor-trailer that had pulled to the side of the road during a freeway closure caused by a fire in the area.

The International, driven by Robert Loeh, 49, of Illinois, swerved to the right to try to miss the Volvo, but the left side of the International struck the Volvo's trailer. The impact not only split open the trailer carrying the shoes, but also threw Boatman, who was in the truck's sleeper berth, from the truck.

He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Loeh received non-life-threatening injuries, while the driver of the Volvo truck, Armin Ghorbanpoor, 21, of British Columbia, received minor injuries. Both had been using safety restraints.

(John Killen is a staff writer for The Oregonian of Portland, Ore., and can be contacted at johnkillen(at)news.oregonian.com.)