SUV in Hollywood Hills runs off canyon road; 2 dead, 3 injured

Two people died and three others were injured today after a sport utility vehicle drove off a narrow canyon road, rolled down a steep hill and crashed against a home's carport in the Hollywood Hills, authorities said.

The crash occurred shortly before 8 a.m. when the white Range Rover went over the edge of Crescent Drive, tumbled about 250 feet and landed on the carport of a single-family home in the 8700 block of Duncamp Place, near Lookout Mountain Avenue, according to police and fire officials. Dozens of Los Angeles City firefighters responded as several news helicopters hovered overhead, residents said.

A man in his 70s, who was trapped in the vehicle, was pronounced dead at the scene. A woman in her 40s was transported to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.

The driver, a 40-year-old woman who police believe might have been the dead man's caretaker, was critically injured and two other passengers, including a toddler, suffered moderate injuries, said Los Angeles Police Det. Judy Acosta.

The driver was apparently trying to back up or turn around and may have lost control when the vehicle dipped into a large pothole, Acosta said. The luxury SUV came to rest upside down and wedged between the steep embankment and the edge of the carport -- its backside badly damaged, its wheels clogged with brush from the hillside, but still largely intact. The injured victims had apparently escaped through the sunroof, which had been torn away.

"If the child had not been in a car seat, it is likely it would have been ejected and killed," Acosta said. It remained unclear whether the others were wearing safety belts.

The identities of the people involved and the relationships among them were not yet known, Acosta said.

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