4 Die in Wrong-Way Collision on Freeway : Accident: The driver and passengers in the errant vehicle apparently had been drinking and celebrating a birthday, the CHP says.

Four friends reportedly out for a late-night birthday bash were killed early Thursday after the driver, apparently intoxicated, drove onto the wrong side of the Santa Ana Freeway and slammed head-on into an oncoming pickup truck, the California Highway Patrol reported.

The driver of the pickup, recovering in the hospital Thursday, said he thought “this is it, it’s all over” when he saw the headlights of the wrong-way car speeding toward him on the freeway. But he managed to escape serious injury.

It was the latest in a series of head-on collisions in Orange County that have made 1991 the worst year in recent memory for such accidents, authorities said.

After the initial collision with the pickup, the wrong-way car was crushed further when it was rear-ended by a big rig that was unable to swerve away from the wreckage, CHP Officer Angel Johnson said. The driver fled the scene in his rig.

Opened beer bottles were found in the car with the four victims, and authorities blamed the accident on drinking. It will likely be several weeks, however, before blood-alcohol tests are back from the Orange County coroner’s office.

The collisions occurred at 2:15 a.m. The driver of the wrong-way car, identified as Miguel Germain of Anaheim, had turned 27 the day before and apparently was celebrating the birthday with his three friends, Johnson said.

The names of the dead companions, who all lived in Anaheim and ranged in age from 26 to 31, were being withheld until relatives are notified, Johnson said. Authorities believe the families of some or all of the victims may be in Mexico.

The accident closed the southbound lanes of the Santa Ana Freeway at the State College Boulevard overpass for 6 1/2 hours--well into the morning commute--until the CHP completed its investigation and emergency crews cleared the roadway.

“They had to practically cut the car in half to get the bodies out,” Johnson said. “They were kind of welded into the car.”

It was not immediately known where the 1989 Ford Tempo got on the freeway or how long it had been going the wrong way, but Johnson said it could have traveled at least 1 mile before it collided with a 1991 Chevy pickup truck in the southbound fast lane.

The only clue was a 2:25 a.m. phone call--10 minutes after the accident--from a motorist who spotted the wrong-way driver on the Santa Ana Freeway at the Garden Grove Freeway around 2:10 a.m. but did not report it until he got home, Johnson said.

“We wish he would have used a call box or something,” Johnson said, adding that police had no reports of a wrong-way driver until the time of the accident.

Wrong-way drivers this year have accounted for seven deaths and five injuries in Orange County, making 1991 already the most deadly in recent years for such collisions. Two of the four accidents have been attributed to alcohol.

By comparison, three traffic deaths were blamed on wrong-way drivers in 1990, two deaths in 1989, four in 1988 and two in 1987.

Thursday’s accident followed by one day a wrong-way crash in Los Alamitos, in which a Seal Beach man was seriously hurt when a Carson man drove the wrong way on Katella Avenue. The Seal Beach man, 67-year-old Donald Burt, remained in critical condition Thursday at Long Beach Memorial Hospital, while the wrong-way driver was not injured.

On June 25, a La Verne woman, who was a suspected drunk driver, entered the Orange Freeway, heading southbound in the northbound lanes. Moments after a CHP officer spotted her, the woman’s Mercedes-Benz plowed into a Ford Thunderbird, killing her and the other driver.

And on June 1, a Placentia man was killed when he entered the off-ramp of the northbound side of the Orange Freeway and struck two other cars. That crash left three injured, one seriously.

The most publicized recent wrong-way accident occurred last December when 23-year-old Faith Robinson, drunk and confused, drove her car for more than 8 miles on the wrong side of the San Diego Freeway before slamming into a 1985 Cadillac.

The driver of the Cadillac, Sang In Ahn, 50, of Irvine, died instantly. Robinson died a week later.

In Thursday’s accident, Johnson said it was not known exactly what speed the car was traveling when it collided with the pickup.

The impact sent the pickup truck into the center divider. Meanwhile, the car spun out of control and came to rest, facing south in the middle of the freeway, Johnson said.

A few seconds later, a big rig slammed into the Tempo, crushing the rear end and cutting off any possible escape from the back of the car, Johnson said.

By that time, however, it might have been too late for escape. Coroner’s investigators believe that all four victims were killed almost instantly from the first collision and were already dead by the time the big rig plowed into their car, Johnson said.

The big rig pulled over to the shoulder of the freeway for a few minutes, then drove off, Johnson said. CHP investigators on Thursday were still searching for the hit-and-run truck and its driver.

“There is very little doubt” that the accident was alcohol-related, Johnson said, citing at least three opened beer bottles found in the car.

The driver of the pickup, David E. Palmer, 24, of Mission Viejo, was listed in stable condition at UCI Medical Center in Orange, hospital spokeswoman Fran Tardiff said.

He was expected to spend the night under observation in the cardiac ward because of concerns that he might have suffered internal injuries from the impact. His only other injuries were cuts and bruises.

The crash left a large bruise across Palmer’s chest from his seat belt, but he wasn’t complaining. “That seat belt sure saved his life,” Johnson said.

Still groggy from the ordeal, Palmer, an environmental health consultant, said in an interview from the hospital that he had been working late at his office in north Orange County and was on his way home when the accident occurred.

There were several other cars traveling near him on the three-lane freeway.

Suddenly, Palmer said, he noticed the other cars slamming on their brakes and swerving madly aside. That was when he spotted a set of headlights crossing the freeway from the slow lane to the fast lane, directly in front of him.

The wrong-way driver was approaching so fast, Palmer said he could do nothing more than slam on his own brakes and pray.

“I thought to myself, ‘This is it. It’s all over,’ ” Palmer said, his words slightly slurred because of a stitched lip. “It was all just kind of a blur.”

The impact into his truck was so great, he said, that it stopped the vehicle dead from 60 m.p.h. within a few feet.

“It was like a brick wall,” he said. Despite the severity of the impact, Palmer was able to crawl out of his truck and sit down in the center divider to wait for help to arrive.

“Somebody was definitely looking out for me,” he said.

Palmer said that as he sat shakily on the asphalt, a truck driver who stopped to help him peeked inside the mangled Tempo. The driver then shouted, “I can’t believe it. Those SOBs still have their beer bottles between their legs,” Palmer recalled.

Palmer said that he hoped the message behind the accident was clear.

“It’s such a lesson,” he said. “Wear your seat belt and don’t drink and drive.”

Head-On Tragedy Four men in a car going the wrong way on the Santa Ana Freeway were killed Thursday after colliding with a pickup truck. Investigators believe the car’s driver was intoxicated. Beer bottles were found in the car. How the Accident Happened 1. The car moved into the fast lane of the south-bound Santa Ana Freeway. Approaching vehicles swerved to avoid it. 2. A pickup truck, unable to avoid the car, skidded a short distance and the two collided. The truck struck the center divider. The driver, wearing his seat-belt, suffered cuts and bruises. 3. The car, with massive front-end damage, spun into the middle lane. Only the front passangers had on automatic should seat belts. 4. A big rig hti the car. The truck pulled to the shoulder and the driver got out, but then left after a few minutes. Witnesses are asked to call the CHP at (714) 547-8311. A passing motorist spotted the car before the 2:15 a.m. accident, about a mile from the collision site. However, the California Highway Patrol did not receive the call in time to prevent the accident. Source: California Highway Patrol; witness accounts Researched by DANNY SULLIVAN / Los Angeles Times