Firefighters had to extricate the driver from the wreckage of a vehicle that veered off Highway 101 in Santa Barbara and overturned early Sunday, according to the Santa Barbara City Fire Department.
Emergency personnel were dispatched shortly after 3 a.m. to Calle Real at Hope Avenue, said fire Capt. Dave Ward.
An SUV was northbound on the freeway when it was involved in a collision with another vehicle.
The SUV then left the freeway, narrowly missing a row of palm trees before slamming into an above-ground electrical vault that controls the traffic signal at the intersection, Ward said.
“It’s amazing that he threaded between the palm trees, which would have been a lot worse for him had he hit them,” Ward told Noozhawk.
The vault was destroyed and the traffic signals disabled, Ward said.
Crews used the “Jaws of Life” hydraulic equipment to cut the roof off the vehicle and free the driver, who was taken by AMR ambulance to Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital.
His name and details on his injuries and condition were not available.
There reportedly were no injuries in the other vehicle, which remained on the freeway.
Several large batteries from the electrical vault were strewn across the roadway after the crash, which was under investigation by the California Highway Patrol.
Ward noted that, despite the severity of the crash, the vehicle’s airbags did not deploy.
— Noozhawk executive editor Tom Bolton can be reached at tbolton@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
