2 Drivers Die as Car Turns Into Van’s Path

Two people died Monday after a 34-year-old woman apparently veered to the right shoulder of Santiago Canyon Road and then jerked back across the lane into the path of an oncoming, one-ton van.

“We don’t know if she was attempting to do something in the vehicle, if she was reaching for something, if she spilled coffee on herself or what,” said Officer Karen Bowen, a California Highway Patrol spokeswoman.

Bowen said Inga Hedjazi of Trabuco Canyon was still holding a cosmetics bag in her hand when emergency workers removed her from the crushed vehicle.

Bowen said the southbound driver of the Chevrolet van, Scott Corsair, 61, of Orange saw her car heading across both lanes and tried to slow down seconds before he was struck.

Paramedics managed to revive Corsair, but he died at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana.

His 21-year-old passenger suffered moderate injuries.

Investigators speculated that Hedjazi drifted toward the right, where her vehicle’s tires may have run into the soft dirt along the shoulder, then yanked the steering wheel to the left to compensate.

Weekend rain had muddied much of the area, Bowen said.

“It’s very possible, with the shoulder being a little soft right now, that [Hedjazi] overreacted to get back on the road,” the CHP spokeswoman said.

The crash, which shut down Santiago Canyon Road for nearly three hours Monday, occurred about two miles south of Irvine Lake along a stretch of road where the speed limit is posted at 55 mph.