30-Car Pileup Shuts Vincent Thomas Bridge

A “massive chain-reaction collision” involving 30 cars and as many as 14 separate accidents shut down traffic on the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro for 2 1/2 hours early Tuesday, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Despite the amount of property damage--one CHP officer described it as “just a mass of damaged vehicles pointed in all directions”--no one was seriously injured.

The bumper-car-style pileup began at 5:45 a.m. when one car rear-ended another. From the first crunch to the last bump, the incident lasted just 13 minutes. During the pileup, a jackknifed truck blocked both eastbound lanes of the bridge and a car caught fire when a motorcycle slid underneath it.

“Basically,” said CHP Officer Ken Ratcliff, “it was just a bunch of collisions one after another that just blocked the whole bridge. . . . It stretched out for approximately 300 yards on the bridge--30 damaged vehicles, some turned backwards, some turned crossways.”

Two people suffered minor injuries. Motorcyclist James Lord, 34, fell off his bike before it slid under the car and fractured his foot.

And the driver of one of the cars involved in the first collision, Flordileno Lahep, 47, of Gardena, suffered neck strain.

Both were treated at St. Mary’s Hospital in Long Beach.

There was no damage to the bridge itself and no damage estimate was immediately available for the cars.

Bridge workers and Caltrans officials said Tuesday’s pileup was the biggest accident on the 26-year-old Vincent Thomas in recent memory.

The bridge, which connects San Pedro to Terminal Island, is a commuting route for hundreds who work on the industrial island in Los Angeles Harbor.

According to Ratcliff, the first collision, in which Lahep’s car rear-ended another, occurred on a curve just over the crest of the bridge. The road was somewhat slick, because of morning dew, but officials have not said what caused the initial crash.

By the time other drivers spotted the crash, he said, it was too late for them to slow down to avoid it.

Both sides of the bridge were reopened at about 8:15 a.m., Ratcliff said.