Off-Duty Emergency Workers Aid Victim

Two off-duty emergency workers and other motorists rushed to help Thursday after a three-car crash injured two people, including a 35-year-old Costa Mesa woman badly hurt when her car rammed into a freeway embankment.

Ana Colocho was listed in critical condition Thursday night at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana after the crash on the southbound San Diego Freeway sent her Toyota Corolla veering across four lanes and into a center divider, according to authorities and witnesses. She suffered chest, hand and neck injuries, witnesses said.

Two other vehicles were involved in the crash near the MacArthur Boulevard exit, and one of the other drivers, Victoria Gonzales, 52, of Los Angeles, also was injured. She was listed in stable condition Thursday night at the same hospital. Two passengers in Gonzales’s Chevrolet Astrovan had minor injuries but were not hospitalized.

Among passersby who stopped to help Colocho and Gonzales were paramedic Bill Kho of Mission Viejo and Francisco Hurtado, an Orange County volunteer firefighter. While waiting for emergency units, they climbed into Colocho’s mangled car to stabilize her and hold her head upright in case she suffered spinal injuries.

The 8:40 a.m. crash was apparently triggered by an unsafe lane change by Colocho but remains under investigation, according to Officer Angel Johnson of the California Highway Patrol.