Local : 3 Accidents Delay O.C. Drivers

Orange County motorists were delayed for hours this morning by three traffic accidents on different freeways, the California Highway Patrol said.

A tractor-trailer heading southbound at the convergence of the San Diego and Santa Ana freeways lost its load of fertilizer at 6:30 a.m., closing all but one lane and triggering a two-car, minor-injury accident, the CHP said.

Southbound traffic on the San Diego Freeway was backed up to University Avenue until about 8:45 a.m., when the SigAlert was canceled, CHP officer Kevin Livingston said.

Also at 6:30 a.m., a truck and five cars were involved in a collision on the eastbound Riverside Freeway at the Gilbert Street overpass, causing a 175-gallon diesel fuel spill, and resulting in two minor injuries, Livingston said. That SigAlert, which closed all but one lane of the freeway, was canceled at 9 a.m., he said.

Two hours later, another SigAlert was called at the interchange of the southbound Orange Freeway to the eastbound Garden Grove Freeway when a CHP motorcycle officer fell off his bike. He was transported to a nearby hospital in a squad car, Livingston said. There was no word on the nature or extent of his injuries.

“Things were pretty messed up,” Livingston said.