Ten Killed in Freeway Pileup in Sacramento

Thick smoke from a brush fire cut visibility on a heavily traveled freeway here Sunday, triggering a chain-reaction smashup that killed at least ten people and injured 41 others.

California Highway Patrol spokesman George Olinares said that at least 33 vehicles--including two heavy tractor-trailer rigs--were involved in the massive tangle that began at 3:52 p.m. in the northbound lanes of Interstate 5 just north of the downtown area.

“Smoke from a brush fire on the shoulder was blowing across all four lanes of I-5. It was very dense at the time,” Olinares said. “One witness, a truck driver, told us the wind shifted suddenly, cutting visibility in the northbound lanes to zero.”

Fire Engulfed Vehicles

“We think one car may have slowed down suddenly after it moved into the smoke, another car smashed into it from behind and then the others just piled in--one by one,” said CHP Officer Dick Fridley.

The situation was further complicated, Fridley said, when the fire on the freeway shoulder was blown into the tangle of automobiles and trucks, setting at least four of them ablaze and causing their fuel tanks to ignite.

“I looked up, and our car was on fire,” one survivor, DeAnna Dilling, said. “I ran and got away. But the car in front of us had people in it--and I don’t think any of them could have escaped. . . .”

Fridley confirmed that at least one of the dead was a passenger who became trapped in a burning vehicle. Other fatalities, he said, included the driver of one of the tractor-trailer rigs and four people who were in one of the first cars involved in the serial collisions.

Olinares said that at least one more person may have died in the huge tangle, but it was difficult to count the dead and injured because of the compressed and burned condition of some of the vehicles.

“It might be a while before we know exactly how many people died,” Olinares said. “In a few cases, it will be necessary to let the wreckage cool enough to get inside.”

Firefighting and rescue equipment from a 100-mile radius was rushed to the site of the smashup, and the injured were taken by helicopters and ambulances to nine hospitals in the vicinity, where two died and at least 10 were later reported in serious--but not life-threatening--condition.

Traffic in both directions on the freeway, which is the state’s principal north-south artery, remained stalled for more than five hours while wreckage was being cleared.

Sacramento firefighters who had been working to extinguish the brush fire that touched off the tragedy said the accident “just kept happening” for several minutes.

“We heard all these crashes,” firefighter James A. Glenn said. “It went on for five minutes straight, and all we could do was wait for it to end.”

When it was over, he said, firefighters immediately plunged into the smoke to aid survivors.

One of the survivors, Kenneth Shockley, said he was “just lucky--or unlucky, depending on how you look at it:

“Unlucky, if you think we could have missed the whole thing by being a little earlier or a little later,” Shockley said. “Very lucky, if you consider that I only got some relatively minor injuries. (A doctor said he had a black eye, a cut on the side of his forehead and a bruised shoulder.)

“The smoke came down like a curtain being drawn--it was that quick. The driver of the van I was riding in slowed down because of the smoke, but he didn’t slow down fast enough, and we hit the car right in front of us.

“Then we sat there while other cars hit us--seven or eight of them, I think, hit us--and knocked us around like a Ping-Pong ball.”

“The car in front of me had stopped, and I was slowing down,” a woman survivor said. “I got hit from behind. You could not see anything. It was absolutely thick smoke.”

“It was just bang! bang! bang! behind me,” as vehicles rushed into the smoke and crashed into the others, another motorist said.

Olinares said the location and timing of the accident also may have contributed to its severity. The tangle occurred just south of Interstate 5’s interchange with Interstate 80, which is the main route between Lake Tahoe and San Francisco.

“There were a lot of people coming home after a weekend at Tahoe or San Francisco, a lot of people en route to the airport to pick up friends and families,” he said. “And this could complicate the problem of notifying families of the deceased.

“Already the CHP and police telephone lines are jammed with people calling to inquire about their loved ones, and I don’t expect that is going to let up in the near future. You can hardly blame them, of course, but the fact is that we won’t have much to tell them until we can get things untangled.”

Times staff writer Leo C. Wolinsky reported from Sacramento and Ted Thackrey Jr. from Los Angeles.