Driver Who ‘Just Wanted to Get Home’ Keeps Going in Burning, Wrecked Car

The engine was on fire, the windshield was smashed in, two of the tires were flat, the roof was partially caved in and the right front side was ripped open. But Goorgen Hukassians of Saugus managed to drive his car about a mile in a vain attempt to get home after an accident Monday morning.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Steve Grossman of the Santa Clarita Valley Substation. Grossman arrested Hukassians at the scene on suspicion of hit-and-run driving, drunk driving and damage to city property.

“It’s incredible a car in that condition was able to move a foot, let alone as far as he got,” the deputy said.

Grossman said that Hukassians, 22, who was able to walk away from the wrecked car, lost control of the Pontiac Fiero soon after he left the Golden State Freeway at the Valencia Boulevard exit.

“For unknown reasons, he flips over once or twice--he said he couldn’t remember how many times,” Grossman said, “and knocks over a fire hydrant near Rockwell Canyon Road in front of the College of the Canyons.”

But Hukassians managed to keep driving the car up Valencia Boulevard until it finally died near Bouquet Canyon Road, Grossman said.

A security guard working near the area reported a car on fire to the sheriff’s office. When Grossman was on his way to the scene, he said, he heard a report on his police radio that the fire hydrant had been knocked over and was spewing water.

“I figured they were related, and the man who was driving the car did not deny hitting the fire hydrant,” Grossman said. “But when I asked him why he had tried to drive away from the scene, he said, ‘I was just trying to get home. I just wanted to get home.’ ”