Driver Badly Burned as Car Plunges 200 Feet off Ortega Highway

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO —  An El Toro man who was set afire along with his car when it plunged 200 feet off the Ortega Highway on Monday remained in critical condition with burns over 80% of his body.

Titus McCullough, 25, was airlifted by helicopter from the canyon below the highway to the burn unit of UCI Medical Center in Orange. He also suffered possible broken bones and internal injuries, said hospital spokeswoman Fran Tardiff.

Smoke from the fire was seen by Howard Gearhart, 23, of Aguanga, who pulled over and ran down the slope when he saw the car engulfed in flames. Paramedics from the Orange County Fire Department credited Gearhart and another driver, Eric Trygstad, 31, of Lake Elsinore, with a dramatic rescue that possibly saved McCullough’s life.

“When I first looked down and saw the brush on fire I didn’t see the car,” said Gearhart, a tile setter’s helper who was on his daily commute from Riverside County to work in Mission Viejo about 6:45 a.m. “I asked someone else who had stopped if there was a car down there, and then I heard the guy screaming.”

Gearhart ran to the flaming car and found McCullough sitting in the driver’s seat.

“He was sitting in the car, and both were totally in flames,” Gearhart said. “I yelled at him to get out and roll over, which he did. He rolled and kept rolling, screaming for help.”

By the time Trygstad arrived, McCullough was sitting away from the fire. Trygstad, a former reserve fireman from Lake Elsinore, administered first aid to McCullough, who remained conscious.

Paramedics and firefighters arrived minutes later and put out the brush and car fire, which burned about one-eighth of an acre, according to Kathleen Cha, spokeswoman for the Orange County Fire Department.

What caused McCullough’s car to plunge off the cliff remains a mystery, said Ken Daily, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol.

“We usually estimate the speed someone is going by skid marks, but in this case there wasn’t anything there,” Dailey said. “All we could tell is that he was going eastbound.”

McCullough’s car, a 1978 Chevette, was pulled out of the canyon for examination, Daily said.

“This is unusual; cars don’t just blow up and burn like that,” Daily said.

The accident occurred along a stretch of highway known to paramedics as Ricochet Alley, a narrow, curvy section about 14 miles east of Interstate 5, just east of San Juan Hot Springs.

Any mistake in that steep section of roadway can be deadly, Daily said.

“We don’t have that many accidents out there, compared to some other places, but when someone does go off it’s bad, because it’s such a long way down,” he said. “Our records show about six to eight injury accidents a month there, but they get a lot of notoriety.”