PARAMEDIC, PATIENT STRUCK AT CALIFORNIA CRASH SCENE
A firefighter was seriously injured on Interstate 15 early Saturday when a suspected drunken driver's vehicle struck him and ran over a woman he was treating after a collision 15 minutes earlier, authorities said. Temecula-based firefighter Bob Genn, a 49-year-old Hemet resident, was hit by a green Ford Explorer about 2:45 a.m. on northbound Interstate 15 at Winchester Road in Temecula, California Highway Patrol officer Larry Landeros said.
Riverside County firefighters had just pulled a Fountain Valley woman, Lan Thi Le, 64, from a sedan involved in a four-vehicle collision in the freeway's center divider, Landeros said. Genn and Thi Le were taken to Inland Valley Regional Medical Center in Wildomar. Thi Le died before 6 a.m., a Riverside County coroner's report said.
"I only had seconds," Genn said by phone Saturday afternoon from the hospital's intensive care unit. "I heard somebody yell `Look out,' and I saw the car coming sideways at me, like it had lost control. All I could think was to stand up, and I knew it was going to hit me." At least four people were injured in the first accident and several were thrown onto the freeway, causing the closure of the left northbound lane.
Genn had begun treating Thi Le when the Explorer careened toward the center divider, hitting him in the torso and running over her, Landeros said. Genn said the impact launched him 15 to 20 feet. He suffered a collapsed lung, several broken ribs and several cuts and bruises, a Fire Department statement said. Doctors told him he likely would be hospitalized up to five days, Genn said.
Genn, a five-year veteran paramedic firefighter with the Riverside County Fire Department, previously worked for Hemet Valley Ambulance Service. The suspected drunken driver sped north on the freeway before CHP officers stopped him about two miles away, at the Interstate 15/215 interchange in Murrieta, Landeros said. Fernando Cardenas, a 28-year-old Compton man, was arrested on suspicion of a felony hit-and-run collision with injuries and driving under the influence of alcohol.
It appears the driver made it around several emergency vehicles, before crashing into the woman and firefighter, Riverside County Fire Battalion Chief David Fulcher said. Emergency crews parked several fire trucks in front of the accident scene to keep traffic from hitting workers or victims. "Nothing could have been done to stop this," Fulcher said. "Any normal person on the road would have missed us. This person went completely around and ran into our incident."
Police continue investigating what prompted the first collision. Police arrested Chris Parker, who they said ran off the freeway. He was arrested on suspicion of felony hit-and-run, about noon Saturday at a home in Menifee, Landeros said. Authorities are investigating whether alcohol played a role in the first collision, Landeros said.
"The No. 1 killer of traffic officers is traffic itself," Landeros said. "Drunken drivers are often attracted by the blinking lights from emergency crews and that can lead their hands to follow the steering wheel into the crash scene."
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