Last Updated on December 31, 2020 by CCAR Staff
Police are looking for a man who they say early Thursday, Dec. 31, drove a stolen pickup through a barbed-wire fence and onto the 215 Freeway the wrong way in Menifee, where he and a passenger leaped from the moving vehicle and allowed it to roll until it struck an oncoming van.
The driver of the LabCorp van, a 55-year-old Lake Elsinore resident, was taken to Inland Valley Hospital for treatment of major injuries, California Highway Patrol Officer Mike Lassig said.
“The driver had her seat belt on. That had a lot to do with saving her life,” Lassig said.
The 1998 Dodge Ram 2500 was initially being pursued by Hemet police at about 2:40 a.m., Lassig said. The pickup went west on Garbani Road and then south on Antelope Road, paralleling the freeway. Then the driver turned off the headlights, drove over a dirt shoulder and crashed through the fence and onto the northbound lanes traveling south, Lassig said.
At that point, Hemet police stopped pursuing the pickup, Lassig said.
The driver slowed and he and the passenger bailed out. They ran across the northbound and southbound lanes and into a field, Lassig said.
As they ran, the blacked-out pickup rolled about 75 feet in the middle of three lanes before it struck the van, whose driver told officers that she didn’t see the pickup coming, Lassig said.
The collision scattered debris across all the northbound lanes, which prompted the CHP to close the freeway for cleanup and investigation through about 5 a.m.
Menifee and Hemet police eventually caught up with the passenger and detained him, Lassig said.
