Boy Pried Out of Pickup After It Hits Pole

A man and his son escaped serious injury Saturday when their pickup truck plowed into a power pole at a busy Canoga Park intersection, causing a 675-pound transformer to crash down on the truck’s cab and temporarily shutting off power to about 800 Valley homes and businesses.

Loren Dunn, 12, who was pinned for an hour in the crumpled cab before firefighters could pry him out, suffered a fractured wrist and finger. Both he and his father, Mike Dunn, 40, of Van Nuys, were sent home Saturday afternoon from Northridge Hospital Medical Center.

The accident occurred about 10 a.m. when Dunn’s pickup, eastbound on Roscoe Boulevard, reportedly struck a loose manhole cover in the street and went out of control, shearing off a traffic signal and crashing into a utility pole near the intersection of Winnetka Avenue. The impact dislodged the transformer, which fell 30 feet onto the passenger side of the hood.

The elder Dunn was quickly freed and taken by ambulance to the hospital, but the boy was pinned in the cab by the bulky transformer and twisted metal.

Power Circuits Cut

At about 10:30 a.m., power was lost in the surrounding area as city crews cut off electrical circuits to avoid the danger from fallen wires. Power was restored at 11:22 a.m., according to a spokesman for the Department of Water and Power.

In the meantime, a crowd watched for an hour as a Los Angeles City Fire Department rescue squad worked with hydraulic jacks and cables in an unsuccessful effort to free the boy. He was pulled free about 11 a.m. when a heavy-duty tow truck was brought in to remove the transformer from the truck.

Battalion Chief Donald Grant said the boy was conscious and coherent throughout the ordeal, but “scared to death.”

Both Dunns were first listed in serious but stable condition. But further examination showed neither required hospitalization, said Audrey De Groff, nursing supervisor at the Northridge hospital.

As the battered pickup was being removed from the scene, DWP crews sampled a slow oil leak from the transformer for the presence of PCB, or polychlorinated biphenyl--a toxic chemical now banned from production but formerly added to electrical cooling oil to impart heat resistance. A DWP spokesman said later that a lab test showed the oil contained a low level of PCB--too little to require special disposal.

No Other Vehicles Involved

No other vehicles were involved in the accident, and Los Angeles police traffic investigators at first said they had no idea what caused the truck to strike the pole.

However, an auto mechanic working about 200 feet from the crash scene later told police he saw the truck go out of control after striking a heavy manhole cover, which apparently had been left loose on Roscoe by contractors paving the street.

Frank Smith, a mechanic at American Automotive, 20138 Roscoe Blvd., said the Dunn pickup appeared to be traveling about 30 m.p.h. when it struck the manhole cover about 200 feet from the utility pole. Smith said he then lost sight of the truck but, “not 10 seconds later, I heard a smash and there it was.”