Eight firefighters with the Orange County Fire Authority’s Santiago hand crew, who had been fighting the Airport fire, were injured Thursday — six of them seriously — after their vehicle crashed and flipped on State Route 241, officials said.
The crash took place at around 6:45 p.m. when the vehicle swerved to avoid a ladder on the freeway just north of Portola Parkway in Irvine, California Highway Patrol spokesperson Jeremy Tolen told OnScene.TV.
All eight passengers in the vehicle were evacuated by helicopters, with half a dozen sustaining severe injuries and two sustaining moderate injuries, he added.
After a car in front of the firefighting vehicle moved to avoid the ladder, “the driver of the Orange County Fire Authority [vehicle] saw the ladder as well and swerved to avoid it, and wound up striking the guardrail on the right shoulder of road,” said Tolen. “At this point, the fire vehicle overturned.”