Countywide : 2 Killed, Several Hurt in Rash of Traffic Accidents

Two persons died and several were injured in a rash of traffic accidents over the weekend.

Shirley Ray Mudie, 45, of Huntington Beach was driving south on the Edwards Avenue overpass across the San Diego Freeway Sunday afternoon when her car swerved into oncoming lanes and rammed a station wagon carrying nine members of a family vacationing from St. Louis, police said.

Mudie, the sole occupant of her car, was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. The driver of the station wagon, Charles William Braig, and five members of his family were injured but were released after treatment at Westminster Humana Hospital, police said.

In Santa Ana at about 11 p.m. Sunday, Kris Michael Corbin, 18, of Fountain Valley, was riding his moped east on 1st Street approaching Jackson Street when an oncoming pickup truck turned left and struck him broadside, police said.

Corbin was taken to UCI Medical Center in Orange, where he was reported in critical condition, suffering from severe head injuries and a fractured leg.

The driver of a pickup truck, described as a four-wheel-drive 1977 or 1978 Ford, is being sought for felony hit-and-run.

At 12:10 a.m. Monday on South Coast Highway in South Laguna, Matthew O. Place, 36, of South Laguna was driving “at a high rate of speed” toward Crown Valley Parkway when for no apparent reason his car swerved across the oncoming lanes, struck a curb and rolled over, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Place, who was partially thrown from the car, was crushed beneath it as it rolled. He was pronounced dead at the scene. His passenger, Thomas Hurst, 28, of Dana Point, also thrown from the car, was taken to Mission Community Hospital in Mission Viejo for treatment of moderate injuries, a CHP spokesman said.

At 2:45 a.m. on Slater Avenue in Fountain Valley, two cars rammed head-on near Newland Street, and both drivers had to be rescued from their cars by firefighters, police said.

The drivers--Sing W. Tang, 33, of Westminster, and Jose L. Rivera, 20, of Santa Ana--were taken to Fountain Valley Regional Hospital with what police described as “major injuries.” A hospital spokeswoman said Rivera’s condition was critical and Tang’s was “serious but stable.”