Car Runs Up Wire, Flips; 2 Die : Accident: The auto drifted off the road and ran up the guy wire. One woman was pinned inside; the other was ejected onto the road, then run over.

COSTA MESA —  Two young women were killed in a possibly alcohol-related crash early Friday when their car drifted off the road and flew 20 feet into the air before landing upside down on a sidewalk, police said.

The driver, Lisa Marie Spicer, 24, of Garden Grove was pronounced dead at the scene of the 1:46 a.m. accident, which occurred at the intersection of Newport Boulevard and 23rd Street, Costa Mesa Police Lt. Tom Warnack said.

Spicer died instantly when she was run over by a passing motorist who failed to see her lying in the road after she had been thrown from her car, Warnack said.

Passenger Toshia Runner, 23, of Huntington Beach died of massive head injuries at College Hospital.

Authorities said the two friends, who had known each other for only a short time, were returning home from an evening at the Deja Vu nightclub, a popular hangout for young adults.

Although investigators said that Spicer apparently had been drinking before the accident, it was not known what caused her to drift off the two-lane road as she was heading toward the San Diego Freeway.

“It (the accident) is still under investigation,” Warnack said. “(But) based on witness statements, both driver and passenger appeared to be under the influence of alcohol.”

Costa Mesa Police Lt. Alan Kent said that Spicer and Runner had left the nightclub, located at Newport Boulevard and Fairview Road, and headed north on Newport Boulevard.

A block later, at 23rd Street, Spicer’s 1984 gray Camaro drifted onto the sidewalk, Kent said.

Before she could regain control, the car rode up a guy wire attached to a 40-foot-high light pole. The car, which was then about 20 feet in the air, flipped upside down and landed on its roof, crushing it and pinning Runner inside. The vehicle came to rest on the sidewalk about 15 feet from the pole, Kent said.

Spicer was thrown from the Camaro as it skidded to a stop and uprooted a signpost. Moments later, as she lay unconscious in the street, the driver of a white, 1985 Chevrolet Cavalier swerved to avoid the downed light pole and inadvertently ran over Spicer, according to Kent.

The driver, who was not cited, stayed at the scene until police arrived and interviewed him.

“It was a traumatic experience for him,” Kent said. “He was distraught. This is not a hit-and-run situation in any way.”

It took a Fire Department rescue team about 20 minutes to free Runner from the wreckage and take her to the hospital, Kent said.

Runner’s mother, Jeanne Blumer, who learned of her daughter’s death at 3:30 a.m., said that the last time she talked to Runner was earlier in the evening when her daughter dropped over to the family’s Tustin home for a brief visit after attending a mathematics class at Irvine Valley College.

“She came by after . . . class and told me she was going to go out,” Blumer said. “That was the last time I talked to her.”

Blumer, a teacher for the Laguna Beach Unified School District, said the two young women met a few months ago when Runner moved into a Huntington Beach apartment with a mutual acquaintance.