YOUNT, WILLIAM I.

Four accidents, including the plunge of a truck over a 600-foot embankment, killed five persons in Oregon Thursday night and brought the state’s highway death toll close to a 0ne-year record.

The toll stands at 497 in the Associated Press tabulation, only one below the record set in 1961. There have been 27 traffic deaths this month.

Mr. and Mrs. William Yount of Wheatland, Calif., were killed [November 14, 1963] when their truck left a Josephine County road 8 miles south of Kerby and rolled 200 yards down an embankment.

Freeman Scott, Kerby, was injured in the crash but was managed to walk to Kerby and summon help. He said later he could remember only that the truck careened end-over-end down the slope.

Yount was 54, his wife was 44.