A motorist ejected from his vehicle as it plunged more than 300 feet over the side of a cliff near Templin Highway was airlifted to Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital on Friday morning.
The solo-vehicle incident happened shortly after 9:05 a.m. when a vehicle travelling northbound on Interstate 5 left the freeway, just south of Templin, California Highway Patrol Officer Josh Greengard said.
“This vehicle went down 320 feet,” he said. “ The tow truck driver said (the vehicle) was unrecoverable.”
CHP shut down all lanes of the northbound I-5 for about 10 minutes to allow a Los Angeles County Fire Department rescue helicopter to land on the freeway.
At 9:40 a.m., paramedics treated the injured driver and transferred him to the helicopter.
“One patient was airlifted at 9:55 a.m.,” Heidy Kuang, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Fire Department said, identifying the vehicle as a pickup truck.
CHP officers kept the freeway’s number 4 lane — commonly referred to as the slow lane – closed for “a while,” Greengard said, noting that by 10:30 a.m. all lanes were open to traffic.
Regarding the truck, Greengard said CHP officers normally mark the “unrecoverable” vehicle with red or orange paint to indicate they’ve investigated the crash.
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