First the Crash--Then Things Really Go to Pot

ANAHEIM — An alleged drug-runner ferrying bricks of marijuana into Los Angeles found his delivery foiled Wednesday by a most unlikely do-gooder--a reckless driver on the freeway.

Pedro Flores, 26, was lucky to be alive Wednesday after paramedics plucked him from the mangled wreckage of his brown 1983 Ford Ranger.

But, because the wreck also sent 107 pounds of pot flying, Flores was forced to ponder his good fortune from the Orange County Jail.

Witnesses told the California Highway Patrol that Flores lost control of his pickup when a bad driver in a van darted in front of him near the Imperial Highway exit of the westbound Riverside Freeway.

“It’s what we call a non-contact hit-and-run,” CHP Officer Joe Morrison said. “It was a bad wreck too. [Flores] should have been dead.”

Flores’ Ranger careened off the road, smacked into a pole and came to rest at the bottom of a steep embankment, according to Officer Joe Morrison of the CHP.

Behind the truck, two dozen tightly bound bricks of marijuana marked its path.

“It was a heck of a lot of pot, it was just everywhere,” Morrison said.

Flores, a Mexican national, told police he was en route from Pomona to Los Angeles and had no knowledge of the bricks stashed beneath the truck’s bed liner.

Flores was booked at the jail and held in lieu of $10,000 bail on suspicion of drug possession, Morrison said.

The sight of all the marijuana caused traffic to slow and inspired at least one driver to stop, scurry down the embankment and grab one of the bricks.

“But we got a license plate for that person,” Morrison said. “Don’t worry. We’ll definitely be following up on that.”