Laguna Beach : Mechanic Test-Driving Car Is Hurt in Wreck
As Allen Keith was driving across the desert the other day on the way from his home in New Hampshire to Southern California, a thoughtful motorcyclist pulled alongside and told him his right rear wheel “was acting funny.”
On Monday morning, it turned out the cyclist was right.
Keith, 52, an instructor on sabbatical from a prep school in New Hampshire, took his Toyota to a repair shop in Laguna Canyon to have the wheel checked. A mechanic, David Howard, 35, of Mission Viejo, went out for a test drive.
“He didn’t come back,” Keith said.
Howard, in fact, ended up in Mission Community Hospital in Mission Viejo.
Laguna Beach Police Cpl. R.A. Van Gorder said the bearings on the suspect wheel apparently froze, sending the car across the road into oncoming traffic. It was sideswiped and thrown against an embankment by a Cadillac driven by Paula Long, 44, of Laguna Hills. Long, who was wearing a seat belt, escaped injury, Van Gorder said.
Howard suffered chest and other injuries and was said to be in stable condition in a special care unit at the hospital.
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