Hostage Escapes From Fleeing Gunman’s Car : Crime: Suspect being chased by police abducts woman, who throws herself from vehicle. Man is quickly arrested.

IRVINE —  A man led police on a 90-minute chase down busy freeways and streets Thursday and abducted a woman at gunpoint before officers closed in and rammed his car to a halt.

The hostage--Shanna Parsons, 21, of Mission Viejo--managed to escape minutes before the crash by throwing herself from the vehicle as it became clogged in traffic on the Santa Ana Freeway.

With the car slowing to about 30 m.p.h. and the gunman’s .357 magnum resting on his lap, Parsons saw her chance, tumbling out the door and into the traffic lanes. Several pursuing California Highway Patrol cars came close to hitting her. But amazingly, she suffered only minor bruises and a cut foot.

“I’m OK. Nothing’s broken,” Parsons said later as she rested in a wheelchair outside the Irvine Medical Center with her boyfriend, Paul Pritts, 22, of El Toro. “And I’m free!”

Skye Ferguson, 19, of Texas was arrested on suspicion of burglary, robbery, kidnaping, and assaulting a police officer, CHP spokesman Mel Baker said. Officers said they believe Ferguson had robbed a woman in San Diego earlier in the day, tied her up, stole her Jaguar and headed north toward Orange County.

The cadre of officers in pursuit were helped in the chase by Jay Lawrence, a news reporter for radio station KFI. Lawrence said he had heard a report of the chase on the police radio scanner in his car and set off to cover the story. He wound up directing officers to the suspect.

“I was a little nervous when I found out the guy was armed and dangerous and holding a hostage,” said Lawrence, who has been a KFI reporter in Orange County for four years.

The chase began at about 1:30 p.m. when CHP Officer Steve Webb spotted a Jaguar traveling north on the Santa Ana Freeway near Lincoln at 75 to 80 m.p.h. As Webb took off in pursuit, he said he was perplexed to see it suddenly slow down and actually fall behind Webb’s cruiser. And the Jaguar remained in that position for several minutes.

“He did everything he could to avoid passing me,” Webb said. “I slowed down to 40 m.p.h. to see if this car would pass me. Anyone doing 50 would have to pass me, and no matter what I did, he wouldn’t pass me.”

Webb said the Jaguar changed lanes several times, apparently to avoid driving directly behind the officer. Finally, the Jaguar edged past Webb slowly. “I wanted to know why he was trying so hard to avoid me,” Webb said, so he began to close on the car.

At that point, the Jaguar rammed into a truck, jamming its hood under the semi’s body. As Webb stopped and left his cruiser to investigate the accident, the Jaguar backed out from under the truck, almost striking him, and continued north, he said.

With Webb and other CHP officers now in pursuit, the Jaguar left the freeway at Sand Canyon Road and immediately plowed into a Mercedes-Benz at the bottom of the ramp, CHP spokesman Baker said.

Still mobile, the Jaguar drove onto the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, where Irvine police joined the pursuit. There, the car crashed into a chain-link fence and the driver ran away.

After running for about half a mile, the suspect entered E.D. Natural Stone, a wholesale outlet at Fairbanks and Alton Parkway and abducted Parsons, the store’s office manager, authorities said.

Parsons said she had just returned from lunch when she saw a blond man walking closely behind a fellow employee and heading toward her. The man then asked her for a car.

“All of a sudden, he says, ‘This is the deal,’ and pulls out a gun--a real gun!” Parsons said. Quickly, he put the gun to her head, directing her outside and warning three other employees, now all gathered around, not to move.

The gunman then ordered Parsons into the passenger seat of her red Honda and got into the driver’s seat.

Already, Parsons said, “the cops were all over the place.”

Parsons said the sight of the police was not altogether comforting because she feared a crash or a shoot-out if her abductor panicked.

“I wanted to get away from the cops, I really did,” she said. “I wanted to get us out of danger.”

Parsons’ strategy, she said, was to talk to the man in soothing tones as they sped off. He told her he was going to meet friends near Interstate 5 and then head to Mexico.

She tried as best she could to direct him there, she said, although there was no on-ramp at the intersection that he had mentioned for meeting up with his friends.

“He was very apologetic in the car,” she said. “He put the gun between his legs. He promised not to hurt me. He was scared to death.”

At one point, Parsons said, the man appeared near tears as he recounted how he had crashed two stolen cars during his flight and “nearly died” once when he ran a Jaguar underneath a semi-truck.

Reaching back to her psychology course from college, Parsons said, “I wanted to get to know him and let him know I cared and no one was going to hurt him. . . . I was trying to protect him. I did not want to have a chase with me in the car,” she said.

Parsons said she thought about jumping from the car throughout the ride north on the freeway, but didn’t see a chance until they were driving slowly on the Santa Ana Freeway.

“I didn’t trust that he was gonna let me go,” she said.

With her seatbelt off and her door unlocked, Parsons said, she opened the door and jumped, tumbling into the area between the farthest right lane and the on-ramp. Several oncoming police cars came within 20 yards or so of hitting her, she said.

Meanwhile, the gunman exited off Jamboree Road, with officers right behind, Baker said.

“I was going by the Irvine train station on Barranca when I spotted the guy,” radio reporter Lawrence said. “After he did a few zig-zags, I dropped in behind him and dialed up CHP’s dispatcher in Santa Ana. He was going very slow, being very careful.”

Lawrence followed him onto the northbound freeway, reporting his movements to the CHP over his car phone. Finally, he spotted two Irvine police cars.

“Then the girl jumped out of the car,” he said. “It really shook me up when the girl started screaming ‘He held a gun to my head! He was going to shoot me!’ ”

Times staff writers Marla Cone and Eric Lichtblau contributed to this story.