3 Motorists Killed in Crashes on Roads Made Slippery by Rain

Three people died in separate traffic accidents on rain-slick streets in Orange County in the span of an hour around midnight Thursday.

About 12:15 a.m. Friday in Laguna Hills, 28-year-old Robert Francis Barrett Jr. of Laguna Niguel apparently lost control of his car on Moulton Parkway at Santa Maria Avenue, a California Highway Patrol spokesman said. Barrett’s car struck a traffic signal post, then rammed into a concrete block retaining wall, pinning him inside the car, the spokesman said. Barrett was dead before rescue workers could pull him from the wreckage.

Fifteen minutes later in Anaheim, a car entering the Riverside Freeway at Kraemer Boulevard ran against the on-ramp curb, onto the shoulder and into a power pole, killing its driver, Michael John Pruim, 38, of Brea.

In Huntington Beach, a car driven by Roderico Gonzalez, 39, of Los Angeles drifted across the double line on Gothard Street near Ellis Avenue at 11:30 p.m. Thursday and rammed an oncoming car, police said. The collision killed Gonzalez. The other driver, Lois V. Hansen, 62, of Fountain Valley, was in fair condition at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital.

Earlier Thursday, all lanes of the Santa Ana Freeway at Beach Boulevard were closed for 20 minutes after a 39-year-old woman walked onto the bridge overpass, climbed onto the railing and leaped onto the southbound lanes below.

Traffic was at its usual rush-hour density, but the woman was not struck by any of the passing vehicles, a police spokesman said.

The woman was taken to the UC Irvine Medical Center with head and back injuries and was in fair condition Friday.