Collision on Ortega Highway Injures 5 Persons, 1 Critically

Five people were injured, one critically, in a head-on collision on the Ortega Highway Sunday evening when a suspected drunk driver drifted onto the wrong side of the road.

But California Highway Patrol officers had praise Monday for 10 “good Samaritans”--anonymous passersby who stopped at the accident scene along the narrow, winding and, many drivers say, dangerous state road. Without being asked, they aided CHP Officer Gene O’Neal, “directing traffic, calming down injured people and doing all the other things he didn’t have time for,” CHP public information officer Ken Daily said Monday.

“Out there, with the blind curves, it takes more than one person to direct traffic. It’s unbelievable chaos with a traffic problem out there,” Daily said.

According to O’Neal’s report, Norman Peterson, 30, of South Laguna was rounding a blind curve in his Nissan pickup truck when “due to a state of intoxication, he drifted onto the wrong side of the road” and hit a BMW carrying four people.

The accident occurred shortly after 5 p.m. about 13 1/2 miles east of Interstate 5 and 1 1/2 miles west of the Riverside County line.

The driver of the BMW, Ann L. Sprague, 40, of Los Angeles, was taken by helicopter to Mission Community Hospital where she was reported in critical condition Monday with head injuries, fractures of both legs and cuts over most of her body.

Her three passengers were also injured. Her sister, Donna Dague, 40, of Schenectady, N.Y., suffered a broken nose, broken arm and facial cuts and was reported in stable condition Monday. Her son, Harris, 10, was treated and released at Mission Community Hospital for bruises and a cut on the right hip. Another passenger, John Fisher, 12, of Los Angeles, was treated for cuts and bruises and released.

Peterson was also taken to Mission Community where he was reported in serious condition with fractures of the wrist and foot, a dislocated hip and lacerations of the chest, chin and knees. He was arrested at the scene on suspicion of drunk driving, the CHP said.

The driver of a third car struck by flying debris from the crash was not injured.