3 Drivers Die in Separate Auto Crashes Over 3 Days

Three people died as a result of separate Orange County traffic accidents, authorities said Saturday.

Arturo Mucio, 21, of Santa Ana was killed apparently after he fell asleep at the wheel of his car and drifted off the northbound San Diego Freeway into a eucalyptus tree just north of Seal Beach Boulevard in Seal Beach, said California Highway Patrol Officer Farris Hamid.

The Orange County coroner’s office estimated the time of the accident as about 4:30 a.m. Saturday. But authorities didn’t know of it until a passing motorist saw the crashed vehicle and reported it to authorities at 9:05 a.m.

Mucio “was wearing a seat belt, but the impact was just too great,” Hamid said.

Near Mission Viejo, a Rancho Santa Fe man died when he drove his car into the southbound shoulder of Antonio Parkway north of Oso Parkway, over-corrected and slid sideways across the center divider into oncoming traffic, causing a four-vehicle pileup, the CHP reported.

Dead at the scene in the 4:50 p.m. accident Friday was Gregory A. Freeberg, 43, the coroner’s office said.

Freeberg’s car struck a minivan driven by Cheryl Marie Pryor, 44, of Laguna Hills, whose 16-year-old son, Eric, was in the front passenger seat. The van overturned, the CHP said, but neither Pryor nor her son was injured.

The van then struck a 1992 Ford Bronco head-on, CHP dispatcher Linda Verwolf said, with driver Maria Sahagun, 35, of Trabuco Canyon suffering moderate injuries.

Another car was involved in the collision, but Verwolf said she didn’t have details except that the driver, Lawrence A. Mooshagian, 27, of Rancho Santa Margarita, was not injured.

In Fountain Valley, police said the driver of a vehicle involved in a collision Thursday died of her injuries Friday at UCI Medical Center.

The car driven by the Tuyet Bach Huynh, 53, of Santa Ana collided with a car driven by Ararat Kameroglu, 18, of Huntington Beach, police said. The incident occurred at 9:57 a.m. Thursday at the corner of Bushard Street and Edinger Avenue.

After the collision, police said, Kameroglu lost control of his car and struck another vehicle driven by Roberta Hunt of Garden Grove.