3rd Freeway Worker Is Killed on the Job in 24 Hours

As his colleagues dived over a center divider to escape, a worker on the Orange Freeway was struck and killed by a suspected drunk driver late Tuesday, the second fatal accident involving freeway workers in 24 hours.

Hugo Milton Sandoval, 36, of Los Angeles was killed when a car barreled past blinking warning signs and traffic cones and hurled him over an electrical light generator. It was Sandoval’s first night on the job.

The driver, Jeffrey Charles Monnette, 33, of Pomona was in critical condition Wednesday night.

“It happened so fast there was no way to scream and wave the vehicle to slow down,” project manager Frank Talley said. “Everyone was alerted that this was happening. All but one was able to get out of the way.”

The crash occurred at 10:45 p.m. as 19 workers contracted by the Orange County Transportation Agency were cementing the center divider, California Highway Patrol Officer Angel Johnson said.

Workers had closed the fast lane and car-pool lane for about a mile, and had set up an orange truck with a large flashing arrow about 300 feet from their work site.

Johnson said Monnette sped diagonally across several lanes at 70 m.p.h., slamming into Sandoval and the center divider. The impact threw Sandoval over a generator, which the car then hit and pushed about 20 feet, Johnson said.

Antonio Gonzalez Serna, 48, of Chino, one of two workers who jumped from the oncoming car, said Wednesday he had known Sandoval for four years and was shaken.

“I haven’t been able to sleep since I got home at five in the morning. It’s my nerves,” he said.

Serna said he looked up from his work moments before the car hit Sandoval. The car crunched some cones and sped straight toward the trio of men, he said.

The other worker, Adolpho Pacheco, 27, of Riverside escaped with scrapes and bruises to his knee, officials said.

Monnette was in critical condition Wednesday night at UC Irvine Medical Center in Orange. Johnson said he will be booked on suspicion of felony drunk driving and vehicular manslaughter.

Johnson said that when Monnette was arrested his breath smelled of alcohol and he told a CHP officer he had been drinking.

On Monday night, two workers under contract to Caltrans in Paramount died after they were struck by a suspected drunk driver on the southbound Long Beach Freeway, Johnson said. The driver is in critical condition.

At a news conference Wednesday afternoon at the state Department of Transportation, officials expressed condolences to Sandoval’s family and said officials and workers were disturbed by the two accidents.

“It is very scary and very difficult for them to concentrate on their work, but they do it,” said Jim Chappelle, a Caltrans engineer. “They know that these things happen.”