Mission Viejo : 2 CHP Officers Injured as Van Slams Into Car

Two California Highway Patrol officers were injured, one seriously, when a van crashed into them as they questioned a driver stopped on the San Diego Freeway, a CHP spokesman said Thursday.

Officer Ken Daily said the patrolmen had stopped Guillermo Martinez Escobar, 23, of Anaheim on the northbound side of the freeway near Avery Parkway just before midnight Wednesday to give him a speeding ticket. They had parked their car directly behind his.

The officers, Pat Barnard and Lupe Lopez, both 38, were standing beside the cars on the right shoulder when the van, traveling at an estimated 65 m.p.h., swerved into the rear of the patrol car, which slammed into Escobar’s car.

“Both officers were hit by the wrecked cars,” Daily said.

Barnard was taken to Mission Community Hospital in Mission Viejo with serious back injuries but had improved Thursday and was in fair condition Thursday evening, a hospital spokeswoman said. Lopez was treated at Mission Community for leg bruises. Escobar suffered a cut mouth.

The driver of the van, William Neil Lorimer, 39, of El Cajon, who suffered a broken left ankle, was booked in the jail ward of UC Irvine Medical Center in Orange on suspicion of felony drunk driving, Daily said.

“The officers didn’t have time to start writing the speeding ticket for Escobar,” he said.