Driver: I had a foot cramp

All it took, said Izzy Portillo, 21, was an ill-timed cramp in his right foot as he avoided a car cutting him off. And, the next thing he knew, his car was on the sidewalk and a city light pole was nearly on top of him.

“It all happened so fast, I’m still shaken up,” Portillo, a Costa Mesa resident, said Wednesday. Just before 2 p.m., police said Portillo was northbound on Placentia Avenue, north of Victoria Street, when he lost control of his car, fish-tailed and slammed into a light pole on the west side of the street.

Portillo said he was swerving to miss a car that cut him off when he got a cramp in his foot, forcing him to slam on the gas pedal.

He said he tried but couldn’t regain control.

Tire marks trace the path of Portillo’s car up a Costa Mesa resident’s driveway, into the back of their car, along their wall, and straight into the light pole, which snapped in half.

The pole stayed upright for a few seconds before crashing onto the top of Portillo’s 1990 Toyota Camry, just as he was getting ready to get of the car, Portillo said.

Outside of a scratch on his finger and some frayed nerves, Portillo was uninjured.