Quiet Canyon Commute Explodes Into Terrifying Crash : Accident: Five people are injured, two critically, in Santiago Canyon collision. A rush-hour snarl results. A driver is cited on suspicion of drunk driving.

Her car radio tuned to soothing country music for the hectic early commute, Jacqueline Bernier was driving Santiago Canyon Road on Friday when her day was shattered by what she recalled as a “yellow flash” and the sound of her car windows popping.

The flash of color was the blur of an oncoming Dodge Colt that police said collided with Bernier’s Toyota Forerunner utility vehicle about 7 a.m., ripping the Dodge in half and scattering its four occupants on the busy roadway and down an adjacent embankment.

Bernier, 40, a surgery center administrator, said Friday afternoon from her room at UCI Medical Center in Orange: “I never knew what happened. I saw a yellow flash in front of me, and the windows started popping, and I started spinning around. I know I was upside down at some point. I kept my eyes open. I thought that if I close them, I am dead.”

Miraculously, Bernier escaped with relatively minor injuries, including a possible broken heel, but two of the four men in the second car were critically injured.

The Dodge’s driver, Rigoberto Duran Perez, 19, was listed in critical condition Friday at UCI Medical Center in Orange and has been cited by the California Highway Patrol on suspicion of drunk driving.

Arturo Paez, 30, of Santa Ana was admitted to Western Medical Center-Santa Ana, where he is listed in critical condition with a head injury.

Neither Paez nor Perez were wearing seat belts, CHP officers said. The remaining passengers in the Dodge, Nahu Valle, 27, and his brother, Angel, also 27, of Orange suffered minor injuries and were also taken to Western Medical Center-Santa Ana.

The collision, about a quarter-mile west of Irvine Lake, left Santiago Canyon Road strewn with twisted auto parts and caused delays during the commute peak, authorities said.

For about three hours, CHP officers and Orange police diverted traffic away from a 10-mile stretch of Santiago Canyon Road, from Trabuco Canyon Road to Jamboree Boulevard, while investigators sifted through the wreckage and the injured were either airlifted or taken away by ambulance.

Witnesses told police that the Dodge had been traveling east on the two-lane canyon road and passing other motorists on the right shoulder.

Orange County Fire Department Capt. Dan Young said some witnesses reported that the Dodge’s driver tried to re-enter the road from the shoulder but apparently turned too sharply, moving into the path of Bernier’s Toyota.

When the vehicles collided, witnesses said, the Dodge was cut in half, sending the rear portion hurtling down an embankment and scattering its occupants.

Officers said other motorists, including an off-duty county firefighter on his way to work, quickly aided the victims.

“I identified myself and asked the first two people I saw to get help,” said firefighter Don Ford, who was on his way to work at the county’s Santa Margarita station.

While waiting for paramedics to arrive, Ford said, he checked the victims’ vital signs with aid from a nurse and a schoolteacher.

“I was impressed that these people stopped at such a terrible accident and were willing to do whatever they could,” Ford said.

Meanwhile, Bernier--who regularly commutes between her home in Santa Margarita and her job in Orange--said she had never before been in a serious accident.

Before the wreck, she said, traffic was flowing smoothly, a relief from the almost daily, bumper-to-bumper grind--until the oncoming car flashed before her.

“When I righted with my seat belt on,” she said, “I climbed out the window. I don’t know how I did it, but I did.”