This is an archival story that predates current editorial management.
This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.
In what Los Angeles Fire Department officials called a "dramatic collision," a full size white SUV, brand new still with paper license plates, tumbled off the southbound 170 Hollywood Freeway off-ramp late Saturday night onto Burbank Blvd. barely missing an LAPD squad car that passed by the very same spot just moments before. It was said the sergeant saw the crash, feet away, in his rear view mirror.
It appears that a family of four was traveling south on the 170 and while getting off at Burbank Blvd., sheared a utility pole and tumbled multiple times before coming to a stop on the street. A firefighter responding to the scene said that he thought the vehicle was a sedan and not a SUV by the looks of it in its crushed state.
LAPD officers came to the aid of the two young boys, 10 and 13 years of age, who were transferred to the LA County-USC Medical trauma center in moderate distress. The mother, transferred with the two boys, was in serious condition and the last victim to be freed from the car after the use of multiple sets of jaws of life. The father, who was driving, was listed in critical condition.
Also: A family of eight and three dogs were displaced Saturday night in a Chatsworth house fire caused by an overload of circuits. An earlier fire in a Pico-Union apartment injured three.
And: A teenage boy was shot twice in the arm by San Fernando police last night. Sheriff's investigators were responding to a disturbance when a boy approached them with what appeared to be a handgun, according to ABC7. It turned out to be a BB gun, investigators later confirmed.
Today marks the 10th anniversary of Fire 3, where in 1998, an LAFD helicopter transferring an 11-year-old girl to the hospital crashed in Griffith Park. It was the first line of duty deaths in 14 years. Since then, two "last alarm" fatalities have occurred, both in 2004.
