SEAL BEACH : 3 Survive Truck Crash Into River

A westbound pickup truck crashed through a concrete railing on the 7th Street bridge, flipped once and landed on its wheels in the San Gabriel River as the driver and two passengers escaped under water and swam to safety, authorities said Wednesday.

“I’m so lucky that I’m living,” driver Felipe Sanchez, 26, of Long Beach said Wednesday morning as he watched workers recover the truck near Long Beach.

Sanchez, whose forehead hit the rearview mirror, was the only person hurt.

After an evening drinking with friends in Santa Ana, Sanchez lost control of the vehicle about 11 p.m. Tuesday on the 7th Street ramp and hit the left curb just east of Studebaker Road. The truck plowed through a railing, leaving a hole about 20 feet wide.

“I said, ‘Well, I didn’t want to die,’ and we opened the doors right away to swim out,” Sanchez said.

The two passengers walked home. Sanchez said he could not find his way back to his car and fell asleep near the freeway. California Highway Patrol officers found him about 7:15 a.m. Wednesday.

Sanchez insisted he was not drunk and said he had only about five beers the previous evening. He was not cited for the accident, authorities said.

Officer Lyle Whitten, who has been with the CHP for 26 years, said it was the first time he has seen a motorist drive off the 7th Street bridge into the river.

“It’s amazing they all survived,” Whitten said.

A biker along the river had seen the cream-colored truck in the water about daybreak and phoned Seal Beach police, Whitten said.

At 9 a.m., California Department of Transportation workers closed the left westbound lane of Seventh Street for several hours while they pulled the smashed truck out of the river and put up a temporary railing over the hole in the concrete.

Sanchez said the accident has scared him into quitting drinking.

“My lady is waiting for me at home,” Sanchez said about his wife. “She’s going to be angry with me. She always told me not to drink outside our home.”