Thrills End in Toxic Spills as Lovers Lose Control

A partially clothed couple’s amorous ride down Studio City’s busiest street had a decidedly unromantic ending Saturday, Los Angeles police said.

The car veered off Ventura Boulevard near Coldwater Canyon Avenue, hit a palm tree and a power pole guy wire and rolled over, landing on its wheels.

The impact from the 7 a.m. accident tore open containers of chemicals on the car’s back seat and showered Ventura Boulevard with hydrochloric acid and toxic powder, which started a stubborn fire in the rear of the vehicle.

As onlookers rushed to aid the injured female passenger and to fight the fire, the car’s driver grabbed his trousers, raced half-naked down the street to a phone and called a cab, witnesses said.

Authorities blocked off the street so that a cleanup crew could decontaminate the wrecked car and the roadway, creating an 8-hour traffic snarl that disrupted motorists and delayed two weddings taking place nearby.

By the time the chemical spill was cleaned up, police had jailed driver Frank L. Mansell, 35, of Canoga Park on suspicion of manufacturing illegal drugs.

Passenger Evelyn King, 29, of Granada Hills was in stable condition after treatment for head and back injuries at a Burbank hospital, authorities said.

Investigators said Mansell was arrested after he returned in a cab to the scene of the accident and was recognized by some of the onlookers who had rescued King.

Robert MacMillan, a Los Angeles Fire Department battalion chief, said chemicals in the couple’s car included hydrochloric acid, red phosphorous and Freon 12, used in the manufacture of methamphetamine, a stimulant.

Two clerks at a nearby Hughes supermarket, Paul Beulke and Will Carter, emptied fire extinguishers on the chemical fire in the rear of the car as other onlookers pulled King from the burning vehicle.

“Both were half-naked,” said witness Stan Blum of Studio City. “He was putting on his pants as he ran up the street carrying a little valise. The guy was loose for about an hour. When he came back in the cab, people pointed him out to the police.”

Before that, Blum said, a man driving an expensive car and wearing only a bathrobe pulled into the supermarket next to the crash site, apparently to buy a newspaper. In the confusion, the man was briefly detained by police until they decided he was not the driver of the wrecked car.

Officer James Mann said investigators were blaming the mishap “basically on driver inattention.”

“You see this kind of thing on Mulholland Drive, not Ventura at Coldwater at 7 in the morning--that’s what motels are for,” Mann said. “If he was heading for the Sportsmen’s Lodge Hotel, he missed it by a few feet.”

Inside the Sportsmen’s Lodge Restaurant, two weddings scheduled for Saturday morning were delayed by 45 minutes each because guests were caught in the traffic tie-up caused by the spill of powder and acid, a banquet spokesman said.

As Steve and Kim Thompson of Van Nuys finally welcomed 150 guests to their wedding reception Saturday afternoon, friends were already joking that the newlyweds had survived their marriage’s “acid test.”