Crashes Snarl Commutes for Hours

If any of the Disneyland-weary families or night-shift workers saw the headlights of the big rig bearing down on them, it didn’t matter. Hemmed in on a closed Santa Ana Freeway, the midnight travelers had nowhere to go as the truck slammed into them.

Nearly nine hours later, a different Orange County freeway in full rush-hour pitch. An Irvine woman, who had taken the Artesia Freeway to avoid the post-crash chaos on the Santa Ana, was caught in a snarl of commuters anyway. The driver of a truck loaded with Florida produce swerved hard to miss the cars rolling to a halt, lost control, and the big rig toppled into her Jeep, killing her.

Two trucks that didn’t stop in time for backed-up traffic, two crashes and a nightmare morning for more than 100,000 commuters transformed a pair of vital freeways into veritable parking lots. Twenty-three people were taken to hospitals and one life was lost.

The crashes on the Santa Ana and Artesia freeways also bring into stark relief the daily danger of hulking, juggernaut-like trucks sharing packed freeways with far-smaller cars. After experiencing his hefty Ford Thunderbird crumple beneath an oncoming big rig, Jose Reyes Capacete, 28, of Fresno marveled at the power of the truck that nearly took his life and those of his wife and 2-year-old daughter.

“As soon as I pulled my wife out, my car exploded,” he said. The family was headed north on the Santa Ana Freeway for a long drive home after a day at Disneyland, he said. “We were lucky, lucky to get out alive.”

The Santa Ana Freeway had been closed in Anaheim shortly before the crash for an ongoing construction project that has created months of commuter chaos. According to the California Highway Patrol, the crash occurred when the driver of the truck, which was carrying auto parts, rounded a bend and hit a line vehicles waiting to detour off the freeway.

The truck smashed into six vehicles, through a metal rail and into oncoming traffic lanes, before sparking a major fire. According to the Anaheim Fire Department, 21 people--three of them seriously injured--were transported to hospitals.

A milelong stretch of the freeway, a key artery to Los Angeles, was closed in both directions for nine hours. As investigators worked the case, clean-up crews cleared away the spilled diesel fuel that had sent flames shooting 100 feet into the night air.

Many morning drivers avoided the mess by taking the Artesia Freeway--where the second crash created massive snarls at 8:30 a.m.

Neither truck driver was cited, but the accidents remain under investigation. Speed was probably a factor in both crashes, according to CHP officers. In the Anaheim incident, the construction closure may have helped set the stage for danger. Although scores of traffic cones and numerous signs warned motorists of the closure ahead, traffic had backed up past the first signs.

“We have had four incidents now from accidents involving construction on the freeways,” said Cathy Semar, a spokeswoman for St. Joseph’s Hospital in Orange and a member of that hospital’s disaster committee. “Our hospital has been on alert for some time now.”

But the most obvious link between the crashes was the awesome danger of the big rigs.

Truckers Among Safest Drivers, Studies Show

Large and sluggish as they rumble through traffic, the trucks make for easy targets when commuters look to list their freeway headaches. The criticisms are usually the same: The trucks are dangerous and slow, the truckers are overtired and bully others.

The two major crashes will likely step up the drumbeat of trucker-bashing, but advocates say that is unfair.

“You don’t remember the gazillion times a truck passed you and didn’t do anything, but you remember the one that did,” said Thomas H. Wetzel, senior vice president at the transportation research firm Norcom International Corp. As it happened, he was speaking Wednesday at a truck safety session at the Long Beach conference of the National Truckers’ Assn.

Studies show that per hour on the road, truckers are the safest of drivers behind the wheel, Wetzel said, and in the California crashes that do involve trucks, the majority are the fault of others. His contention is backed up by authorities.

“Most often, it’s the other drivers who don’t realize the capabilities of trucks with stopping and maneuverability,” said Steve Kohler, a CHP spokesman in Sacramento.

There were 39,781 collisions on Orange County freeways in 1997, but only 2,482 involved trucks, he said. Of those rig-related accidents, 1,210 of them were the truck drivers’ fault--slightly fewer than half.

Car drivers contribute to those grim statistics by speeding up behind a lumbering rig or squeezing inside when a truck attempts a wide, right turn. Nationwide, up to 75% of accidents involving a car and a truck were caused by the car, Wetzel said.

Still, if the truckers aren’t the problem, the presence of their rigs on the region’s increasingly dense thoroughfares is considered by some to be a danger waiting to happen.

Helen Shanbrom of Tustin has championed stricter laws on truckers and trucks since her son’s death in a 1986 San Dimas freeway crash that was blamed on a speeding gravel truck. She points to a national annual average of 5,000 truck crash deaths as a tally that she finds far too high to be acceptable.

“They’re too big. They’re too heavy,” Shanbrom said. “You have no chance if one hits you. My son didn’t have a chance. They are dangerous, and they’re everywhere.”

Shanbrom and others pushed successfully for legislation for stiffer fines for speeding truckers, safety inspection reform and safeguards against truckers logging excessive hours behind the wheel. She said Wednesday, though, that only limiting the size and number trucks on the road will make matters better.

“These accident are just terrible,” she said. “But there will be more.”

Fiery Crash Brought Residents to Scene

Witnesses described the late-night Anaheim crash as a hellish scene, with bloodied victims stumbling from cars, the truck driver and passersby racing to help others as fire scorched the roadway.

The truck driven by Darrell Garrett, 39, of Palm Springs was rounding a bend just north of the Lincoln Avenue exit and, according to preliminary CHP reports, traveling at 55 mph when he encountered the unexpected traffic jam.

The truck plowed into six vehicles and then tore through several hundred feet of metal railing as it hopped across the center divider and into oncoming lanes, creating another string of crashes, according to CHP Officer Denise Medina and Caltrans spokeswoman Pam Gorniak.

The truck’s fuel tanks were ripped open, spilling as much as 100 gallons of diesel onto the road, setting three cars on fire, said Robyn Butler of the Anaheim Fire Department. “It was a spectacular fire early on. The three cars were all touching each other fueling the fire even more,” she said.

The shrill sound of the big rig sliding to a stop and the explosions that followed jarred awake residents at the adjacent Wilshire Crest Apartments. “I thought it was thunder,” said Geremy Fries, 13, who raced to the scene with other tenants. “There were a lot of people yelling and screaming. Just a lot of panic.”

Shon Bates, 21, of Anaheim was on his way home from a night shift at McDonald’s when he saw the fire. He helped a limping woman out of her car and sat with her on the freeway as explosions sent up billows of noxious smoke.

“I just had her head in my hands and was keeping her flat,” Bates said. “I was keeping them relaxed. . . . I didn’t want her to hurt her head on the curb. She just kept on saying: ‘Hospital. Hospital. I’m scared.’ ”

Victims were taken to four hospitals with injuries ranging from sore necks to internal and head injuries.

Despite the number of people and cars involved, no one died in the fire and crush of metal.

But news of the crash led Patricia Coon’s husband to suggest that she take the Artesia Freeway to avoid the traffic in Anaheim.

The 58-year-old Irvine woman wasn’t the only one taking the detour. Traffic on the westbound lanes of the Artesia backed up heavily in rush-hour traffic.

A produce truck driven by Eusebio Solic, 35, of Miami was in the lane closest to the shoulder when traffic slowed in front of him. He locked up his brakes and veered left. The rig smashed into two cars, including the Honda Civic occupied by Patricia Escobosa, a 44-year-old Downey woman, and her 12-year-old son, who were both hospitalized with serious injuries.

When the truck hit the concrete center divider, it teetered and fell over, landing on Coon’s Jeep Grand Cherokee, said Capt. Scott Brown of the Orange County Fire Authority. Emergency crews worked for more than 20 minutes with the jaws of life device to pry the roof off the collapsed sports utility vehicle. Coon was declared dead at the scene.

Los Angeles-bound freeways became impassable tangles, creating a white-knuckle morning for tens of thousands of drivers already weary of dealing with months of local and freeway construction projects.

Among the drivers trapped at Brookhurst Street and La Palma Avenue during a seemingly endless series of green lights was commuter Marsha Roberts, 44, an accountant at Hubbell Lighting.

“It’s like a bomb has hit Orange County,” she said. “This part of it anyway.”

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Drivers’ Nightmare: 2 Big-Rig Wrecks

Two big-rig crashes Wednesday left an Irvine woman dead, more than 15 people injured and the morning commute snarled on the Santa Ana and Artesia freeways in and around Anaheim. A closer look:

First crash: 12:01 a.m., 16 injured

Second crash: 8:31 a.m., 1 killed, 2 injured

1. Big rig: Moderate damage, 1 injured

2. Mitsubishi pickup: Major damage, 1 injured

3. Nissan pickup: Moderate damage, no injuries

4. Ford Explorer: Moderate damage, 4 injured

5. Plymouth sedan: Burned, 2 injured

6. Ford Thunderbird: Burned, 4 injured

7. Volkswagen Jetta: Car burned, 4 injured

Graphics reporting by BRADY MACDONALD / Los Angeles Times

Source: CHP Officer Denise Medina, and families

The Crash Victims

A list of the drivers and passengers involved in the two unrelated big-rig accidents.

The first crash:

Truck

* Driver Darrell Garrett, 39, Palm Springs; minor injuries

Volkswagen Jetta

* Driver: Ignacio Duran, 25, San Pedro; neck and back pain

* Passenger: Luisa Rodriguez, 46; neck pain

* Passenger: Norma Torres, 26; neck pain

* Passenger: 13-year-old girl, San Pedro; neck pain

* Passenger: 1-year-old; uninjured

Ford Explorer

* Driver: Jose Merlin, 39, Calexico, Mexico

* Passenger: Maria Merlin, 39, Calexico, Mexico; minor injuries

* Passenger: Leo Othon, 19, Calexico, Mexico; head and arm cuts

* Passenger: Irene Othon, 18, Calexico, Mexico; uninjured

* Passenger: 15-year-old girl, Calexico, Mexico; broken right arm and pain in left leg

* Passenger: 4-year-old girl, Calexico, Mexico; minor injuries

* Passenger: 11-month-old girl, Calexico, Mexico; uninjured

Plymouth sedan

* Driver: John Tedesco, 39, Salermo, Italy; abdominal bruises

* Passenger: Ana Tedesco, 28, Los Angeles; internal injuries

Nissan pickup

* Driver Carrie Barnett, 27, Bellflower

Mitsubishi pickup

* Driver: Anaheim woman, 24; extricated with jaws of life, blunt trauma and cuts

Ford Thunderbird

* Driver: Jose Reyes Capacete, 28, Fresno; back pain

* Passenger: Jorge Capacete, 35; uninjured

* Passenger: Blanca Capacete, 33; head injuries and facial cuts

* Passenger: Reina Capacete, 2; uninjured

* Passenger: Diana Franco, 24, Fresno; back and abdomen pain

* Passenger: 17-year-old girl; possible broken left ankle

* Passenger: 8-year-old girl; uninjured

* Passenger: Female; uninjured

The second crash:

Truck

* Driver Eusebio Solic, 35, of Miami

Jeep Cherokee

* Driver Patricia Coon, 58, Irvine; fatal injuries

Honda Civic

* Driver: Patricia Escobosa, 44, Downey; moderate injuries

* Passenger: Escobosa’s son, 12; moderate injuries

Sources: CHP Officer Denise Medina and families