Mangled car wreck kills driver on major California freeway sparking rush hour hell

A Kia Optima careened off the northbound 5 Freeway near Boyle Heights early Thursday morning, killing one person and complicating morning traffic.

One concerned caller phoned the car in as a suspected DUI driver around 2:15 a.m. before the vehicle drove off the freeway and into an embankment, lodging itself firmly under an overpass.

The crash caused officials to issue a SigAlert as traffic remains backed up in the Boyle Heights area. The alert was still in effect as of 6:20 a.m., spanning at least four hours.

Video footage showed firefighters from the Los Angeles Fire Department prying the car away from the overpass. The car’s right side was severely crushed from the impact.

The road closure was visible in the video, with a large group of cars waiting for first responders to clear the scene.

The California Highway Police issued a hard closure of the northbound 5 Freeway to the eastbound 10 Freeway for a time.

It’s unclear who died in the accident or the exact details of the crash.

CHP will be on the scene for a while, ABC 7 reported.

An investigator from the Los Angeles County Coroner was assigned to the crash. An evidence tow removed the vehicle from the scene around 6:00 a.m.

CHP officers began picking up the road closure at 6:43 a.m.

Boyle Heights is a neighborhood just a couple of miles to the east of downtown Los Angeles.

The crash comes after a tragic chain of events rocked Chatsworth earlier this week when a news helicopter covering a bus collision spiraled out of control and fell out of the sky.

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