Meth Fumes Overcome 3 Deputies

Three Orange County sheriff’s deputies were overcome by fumes Thursday during a raid on a drug lab in an upscale Laguna Hills neighborhood, authorities said. A 28-year-old man was arrested.

All three deputies were taken to St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, where they were treated and released, authorities said.

“The investigation is in its early stages,” sheriff’s spokesman Jim Amormino said of the 12:52 p.m. raid on a home in the 23000 block of Prairestone Drive. “Right now we don’t know what we have.”

Amormino called it “very unusual” for a methamphetamine lab to be found in a neighborhood where homes sell for upward of $1 million. The drug lab, he said, apparently belonged to the son of the house’s owners. “I’m sure the parents didn’t have any knowledge of this thing,” Amormino said.

The name of the detained man was being withheld, he said, while the investigation continues.

In a separate, earlier incident, a raid on a meth lab in Fullerton netted almost 6 gallons of the illegal narcotic and four arrests, investigators said.

The bust late Wednesday was at an apartment in the 1200 block of Deerpark Drive, Fullerton Police Sgt. Joe Klein said. Fullerton officers and investigators from the Orange County Laboratory Response Team were involved.

“The detectives received a tip that the occupants were involved in making speed or methamphetamine,” Klein said. “It was a good seizure.”

Police found liquid methamphetamine with an estimated street value of $250,000, Klein said, adding that officers also found chemicals and laboratory equipment capable of producing 10 pounds of solid methamphetamine daily.

Klein identified those arrested as Gabriel Abalos, 37, and Mario Oregel, 34, who both live at the apartment; Raquel Delgado, 24, and Luis Fonseca, 30, both of Santa Ana.

They were booked at Fullerton City Jail on $250,000 bail each.