Divers Search Santa Ana River for Jogger Knocked Off Bridge by Car

An unidentified jogger was struck by a passing automobile and thrown into the Santa Ana River on Sunday, launching an hours-long search through a 12-foot-deep stretch of a river that in most other places is barely a trickle.

Investigators from the California Highway Patrol and six other police and fire agencies had little more than a watch, a key chain and a woman’s shoe for clues as divers searched in the waning hours of the afternoon through the murky water below the Glassell Street bridge in an unincorporated area between Anaheim and Orange.

Joseph Montealegre, 25, of Cerritos, said he and his wife were on their way to another family’s baptismal party with their two small children about 2 p.m. when he saw the jogger, who appeared to be a woman.

His wife, Rosanna, said she was in the back seat feeding the baby when the other child, in the front seat next to her husband, began crying. “My baby was crying; I was trying to feed my (other) baby, and suddenly we heard a bump. I think it was the car bumping on the guard rail.”

She said she looked up in time to see a girl in a pink jogging suit hit the guard rail and go over it into the river. The windshield of the car was smashed, apparently where it had struck the jogger’s head, and a broken digital watch lay with the shoe and key chain on the road near the car.

An unidentified motorist who had been following the Montealegre car immediately dove into the water after the jogger but gave up the search; the body had disappeared below the surface.

Montealegre himself clambered down the embankment and waded into the river but could only see “a splash” where the body had been.

“I couldn’t find her,” he said. “Exactly what happened, we don’t know.”

‘Too Far in Street’

Montealegre said he had told his wife the jogger appeared to be “too far in the street.”

CHP Officer Susan Coutts said the jogger was believed to have been southbound in the southbound traffic lane nearest the guard rail.

The Santa Ana River is less than a few feet deep along most of its course through Orange County, but the Glassell Street bridge crosses one of several spreading basins maintained by the Orange County Water District to percolate water into underground reservoirs.

Accordingly, it is the deepest stretch of the river, and an area very near the site is where a 6-year-old Anaheim girl drowned in April after slipping from a spillway, a water district official said.

The spillways were making divers’ jobs easier Sunday, however, by bottling several hundred yards of the river in a basin with few currents. As dusk set in, large floodlights were brought in to illuminate the inky depths below the bridge where divers still searched.

A girl in red shorts waited quietly on the bridge throughout the search. She said she feared the jogger might have been her friend who runs frequently across the bridge and who wears the same size shoes as the one found. But the girl, who declined to be identified, said she did not recognize the watch and key chain.

‘Stay on the Right’

“I jog and roller skate around here all the time, but I always go the opposite direction when I’m riding my bike,” she said. “The cops stop me and tell me to stay on the right, and I say, forget it. I’d rather get a ticket than. . . .” Her voice trailed off and she went back to scanning the river.

By 6 p.m., investigators called in the divers and called off the search, which was to resume again at 6:30 this morning.

Officer Coutts said Montealegre, who was apparently driving about 35 m.p.h. at the time of the accident, would not be cited.