Traffic Accidents Orange County

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.

Patricia Coon was just about to realize her dream of a retirement filled with leisurely road trips to visit grandchildren. That's the especially cruel thing about accidents, how they cut short visions and plans people make as they drive along. She and her husband had just purchased a brand-new Jeep Cherokee and a motor home for their travels. They were beginning to map out their first trip, which would take them from Irvine to family in Oregon and Utah.

A pair of crashes involving big rig trucks left one woman dead and 23 people injured, crippling two of Orange County's major freeways during Wednesday morning's rush hour. A fiery midnight pileup on the Santa Ana Freeway in Anaheim took nine hours to clear, while a truck that flipped over on the Riverside Freeway during the morning rush hour killed an Irvine woman and left tens of thousands of local drivers in nightmarish gridlock.

A car ran off Interstate 5 in San Juan Capistrano on Monday, landing on a surface street and killing the driver, authorities said. Traveling southbound shortly before 8 p.m., the driver of a blue Datsun veered to the right and off the freeway near the San Juan Creek Road exit, said Officer Mark Reeves of the California Highway Patrol. "The car went through a chain-link fence and then down the embankment," Reeves said. "It overturned, then landed on a surface road."

A motorist who died Monday night after veering off Interstate 5 in San Juan Capistrano was identified Tuesday as Wivington James, 20, of Santa Barbara, the California Highway Patrol said. James and a passenger were traveling south on the freeway in a 1986 Toyota Celica just before 8 p.m. when James apparently made a sharp right and lost control of the car near the San Juan Creek Road exit, a San Juan Capistrano CHP dispatcher said.

Dennis King on Monday faced one of the greatest fears a motorist can experience: His vehicle was stuck in traffic smack across railroad tracks--and the train was coming, fast. King was approaching the tracks on State College Boulevard at Katella Avenue about 8 a.m. when he got caught in a traffic jam because of construction. Then the warning lights started flashing, the horns began blaring and he could do nothing about it. "I couldn't get out of the way," King, 59, of Westminster, said.

The car of an elderly Orange County man missing for almost three weeks has been found in a rural area of Riverside County, authorities said Monday. Lt. Hector Rivera of the Orange County Sheriff's Department said there was no sign of Clifford H. Swift, 81, of Laguna Hills, though his gray, two-tone Mercury Marquis was found crashed into a utility pole in Temecula. The car was spotted by a jogger July 16 but was not reported to authorities until July 26, Rivera said.

A cement truck overturned Tuesday afternoon, forcing closure of an exit from the Garden Grove Freeway, authorities said. The driver was trying to exit the westbound Garden Grove Freeway at The City Drive just after 1:30 p.m. when the vehicle tipped onto its side, said Officer Mark Reeves of the California Highway Patrol. "Apparently the guy was driving a little too fast," Reeves said. "He took the turn and then overturned."

An 18-year-old Trabuco Canyon man was killed early Sunday when his car hit a median and flipped, throwing him, police said. Jason Lorbiecki, who was going south on Santa Margarita Parkway about 3 a.m. in a 1997 Ford Mustang, was not wearing a seat belt, police said. Lorbiecki's 17-year-old passenger, who was wearing a seat belt, escaped with minor injuries, police said. The pair apparently was headed home after stopping to eat at a fast-food restaurant, police said.

A Fullerton teenager was killed as she walked across Yorba Linda Boulevard and was hit by a driver who later was arrested on suspicion of leaving the scene without stopping, police said. Crystal Rose Giczy, 16, died Saturday at UCI Medical Center in Orange shortly after the 9:30 p.m. collision, Fullerton Police Sgt. Don Pearce said. Giczy and two teenage boys had been crossing "mid-block" on the 3200 block of East Yorba Linda Boulevard when the collision occurred, police said.