Garden Grove : Ex-Assemblyman Faces Surgery After Crash

Former state Assemblyman Dennis H. Mangers was scheduled to undergo surgery today for injuries suffered when his car was hit by a wrong-way driver’s vehicle on the Garden Grove Freeway, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Mangers, now a lobbyist for the California Cable Television Assn. in Sacramento, will have a pin inserted in his right wrist and surgery on his left ankle at Pacifica Community Hospital in Huntington Beach, legislative assistant Norma Partlow said.

Partlow added that the 45-year-old former Huntington Beach assemblyman also suffered a minor concussion and a severe scalp laceration in the 1:35 a.m. Saturday accident.

The driver of the other car, Lonny Gene Rhodes, 25, of Orange, was hospitalized for severe trauma to his head and chest and a torn ear, California Highway Patrol Lt. Stanley Meyers said Tuesday.

However, a spokesman for the Memorial Medical Center of Long Beach said Tuesday that Rhodes was treated in the emergency room and released Saturday morning without being admitted to the hospital. The spokesman said records did not indicate when Rhodes was released or whether he was transferred to another hospital.

Meyers said that Rhodes was under investigation for felony drunk driving. The case was expected to be referred for prosecution to the county district attorney’s office by late next week. The maximum penalty for felony drunk driving is one year in jail and a fine of $1,000 for a first offense.

Meyers said an uninjured third motorist told investigators that Rhodes drove the wrong way onto the freeway from the Valley View Street off-ramp in Garden Grove and slammed into Mangers’ rented car. Betty J. Tipton of Torrance told CHP investigators that she swerved but was unable to avoid hitting Mangers’ car.

Partlow said that Mangers was returning from a movie to a hotel in Long Beach, where he had conducted a seminar on cable television.

Mangers, a Democrat, served two terms in the heavily Republican coastal Orange County district until he was defeated in 1980 by Assemblyman Nolan Frizzelle (R-Huntington Beach).