CHP Seeks Truck Driver Involved in 4-Fatality Crash : Investigation: An officer says that the trucker left the scene after a few minutes. He is not facing any charges, but authorities want to question him.

The driver of a big-rig truck who left the scene of a grisly, wrong-way freeway crash that killed four people is being sought for questioning by CHP officers, a spokeswoman said Friday.

“Basically, the truck driver stopped at the scene for a few minutes but left without leaving any identification,” CHP Officer Angel Johnson said.

The accident occurred at 2:15 a.m. Thursday when Miguel Angel Ortiz Germain, 27, of Stanton drove his car in the wrong direction on the Santa Ana Freeway near Chapman Avenue and collided head-on with a pickup truck.

The driver of the big-rig tractor, who was unable to swerve away from the wreckage, then plowed into the rear of Ortiz’s car, Johnson said.

According to preliminary coroner’s reports, all four people in Ortiz’s car died instantly upon impact with the pickup, and not from being struck by behind by the bigger truck, Johnson noted.

“No charges would be pending against the truck driver. But we would like to talk to the guy,” she added.

Although witnesses saw the big rig, they did not get its license number. The truck was described as a dark brown, 1977 Peterbilt.

The victims included Martin C. Mora, 26, of Anaheim, who was Ortiz’s brother-in-law. Coroner’s investigators, trying to locate families in Mexico Friday, withheld the names of the other two men killed in the crash.

The driver of the pickup truck, David Edward Palmer, 24, was released from UCI Medical Center in Orange in good condition on Thursday. He had been wearing his seat belt.

Ortiz’s family is now trying to raise enough money to bury him, according to his girlfriend, Delia Flores, 22, of Stanton.

“That’s our biggest problem right now. We don’t have enough (money),” Flores said in Spanish.

On the evening of the accident, Erit Ortiz said he saw his brother drinking beer while they celebrated his 27th birthday with friends and family at his parents’ Anaheim home.

“My brother, I’ll be honest, was drunk,” Erit Ortiz said Friday, adding:

“But not so drunk that he can’t tell the difference between the exit or the entrance of the freeway.”

Flores said that Ortiz was a friendly man who enjoyed life and loved to dance to hot salsa music. He worked as a tailor in Anaheim.

She said Ortiz left the party at about 2 a.m. with Mora and two other friends. All four were originally from Mexico City and were childhood friends.

She had arrived in another car and drove home with another friend.

How Ortiz got to the Santa Ana Freeway from his parents’ house near Ball Road and Euclid Avenue has baffled them, Flores and Ortiz’s family said.

“That is what we can’t figure out. We’ve been trying to find the answers ourselves. But we can only speculate. We will never know,” she said.