Yorba Linda : Driver Injured as Truck Careens Through City

A trucker who had spent all night driving from Oakland to Orange County climbed into his pickup truck to go home Wednesday morning but didn’t make it there.

Police said Millard Fisher, 65, of Yorba Linda was “very fatigued” as he was driving his full-sized pickup on Orange Drive in Yorba Linda at 11:30 a.m. As he approached Valley View Avenue, he apparently fell asleep, Officer Rueben Hernandez said.

The truck, going an estimated 36 m.p.h., ran a red light at the intersection, went over the curb and sidewalk of Valley View, sideswiped a fence, went into a city park, traveled through the park in a wide curve, jumped the curb again, went across a church parking lot, then broke through a fence and plunged into a 15-foot-deep flood control channel, Hernandez said.

Fisher was taken to Western Medical Center in Santa Ana, where he was reported in stable condition in the intensive care unit.

Hernandez said that only one person--a mail carrier on break--was in the park when the truck came through. He said the carrier thought the truck was an empty runaway since no one was visible behind the wheel. He said, however, that the witness later noticed Fisher “bouncing around” in cab.

Hernandez said it appears that the truck was utterly unguided through its destructive tour of the neighborhood.