Truckload of Lettuce Tips Over at Busy Interchange : Accident: Spill causes a morning rush-hour headache for commuters on Ventura and San Diego freeways.

Heads rolled Friday morning.

Thousands of leafy heads of lettuce spilled over the Ventura Freeway, creating a massive traffic jam at the San Fernando Valley’s busiest freeway intersection when a tractor-trailer truck tipped over.

The 35,000 pounds of produce was seasoned by more than 100 gallons of the truck’s diesel fuel, creating a mix even Paul Newman would hate.

“It was the worst mess I’ve ever seen,” said KYSR-FM disc jockey Paul Freeman of Woodland Hills, who was late to his show because of the freeway salad. “That freeway is pretty bad, and when you block it with lettuce . . . “

About 4:45 a.m., George E. Mudge was driving his truck “at an unsafe speed” east on the Ventura Freeway through the interchange with the San Diego Freeway, California Highway Patrol Officer Dwight McDonald said.

The truck followed the roadway as it swerves left, and the truck’s load shifted, dragging the truck tractor to the right, where it struck the guardrail and overturned onto its right side, McDonald said.

Out tumbled the lettuce, heads spilling like on a bad day in the French Revolution. Not only did it back up the eastbound Ventura Freeway, but it also spilled onto the lanes that lead to the San Diego Freeway, blocking the Valley’s two busiest stretches of freeway just in time for rush hour.

Mudge and his passenger were taken to Sherman Oaks Medical Center and treated for minor injuries while Caltrans workers surveyed the damage.

“I’ve never seen that much lettuce anywhere before,” said Caltrans maintenance worker Jim Dumas.

Of greater concern was the spilled diesel fuel, which is classified by environmental authorities as hazardous waste. Caltrans called in a private company to suck the fuel out of the drains at the side of the freeway, which would have funneled it into the Los Angeles River. Six dump trucks were called in to cart away the lettuce.

Through it all, commuters sat in a traffic jam of epic proportions. Surface streets were jammed for hours, and neither side of the Ventura Freeway between Reseda Boulevard and Woodman Avenue cleared up until the lunch hour, McDonald said.

Ironically, while commuters stewed in their cars waiting for the mother of all salads to be mopped up, a portion of the Valley Circle interchange on the Ventura Freeway was reopened Friday morning, with Caltrans promising it would ease the traffic jams that have plagued the freeway since work began in January, 1994.

The renovation includes a new, six-lane bridge over the freeway that replaces a four-lane structure. Caltrans has scheduled several opening dates for the project in the past few months, only to abruptly postpone them. The bridge and the on-ramp to the eastbound freeway opened Friday. The westbound off-ramp to Valley Circle and Mulholland Highway will not open until Monday.

McDonald said the lettuce jam was memorable, but not unique. In 1989, near the same interchange, a tractor-trailer hauling oranges spilled its load. McDonald said that mess was worse.

“Oranges,” he said, “are sticky.”

Times correspondent Frank Manning contributed to this story.