12 Firefighting Convicts Injured as Truck Overturns

Twelve state-prison inmates working at a Los Angeles County fire camp were injured, two seriously, when a truck in which they were riding spun out of control and overturned Friday on a twisting mountain road in Saugus, fire officials said.

The injured men were taken by helicopter and ambulance to Henry Mayo-Newhall Memorial Hospital and to Holy Cross Hospital in Mission Hills, where all but two were treated for minor injuries and released. One inmate remained hospitalized Friday at the Newhall hospital with abdominal injuries, and another was admitted to the Mission Hills hospital with a broken foot, hospital officials said.

The Los Angeles Police Department and the California Highway Patrol dispatched officers to the two hospitals to stand guard while the inmates were treated, officials said.

The men, who were not identified, were from the fire camp north of Saugus run jointly by the state Department of Corrections and county Fire Department. The minimum-security camp has 87 inmates, all state prisoners nearing the end of their terms.

Four such camps in Los Angeles County have been helping battle recent brush fires, corrections department Officer Floyd Rios said. The inmates, who are trained by the California Department of Forestry, serve voluntarily.

Convicted arsonists and rapists are excluded from serving in the camp, Rios said, but some of the inmates are serving time for crimes as serious as manslaughter.

The accident occurred shortly before 1:30 p.m. on San Francisquito Canyon Road about 11 miles north of Bouquet Canyon Road as the truck was taking the inmates from the minimum-security fire camp to assist firefighters battling brush fires in Newhall.

The truck’s driver, a Los Angeles County firefighter, was not injured, county fire Capt. Gordon Pearson said. The driver said the accident was caused by failure of the truck’s brakes, according to CHP spokesman Harry Ingold.

When inmates help firefighters, they work under an unarmed foreman, Rios said.