3 Injured in Collision on Canyon Road

Three people were injured, one of them seriously, in a head-on collision of two cars that tied up traffic for more than two hours Friday afternoon on Laguna Canyon Road, authorities said.

The crash occurred about 12:40 p.m., halting traffic on the northbound side of the four-lane divided section of the road until about 3 p.m., Laguna Beach police said.

The accident Friday happened at the intersection of Laguna Canyon Road and a frontage street when a driver made a left turn into the path of an oncoming car, Sgt. Mike Hall said.

Patricia Tomaso, 67, of Laguna Beach, a passenger in the car driven by Malise Engel, 41, of Laguna Hills, suffered severe leg injuries, police said. Tomaso was taken by helicopter to Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo, where she was listed in serious condition Friday night, a hospital spokeswoman said.

The second car was driven by Melvin Whetstine, 18, of Irvine. Engel and Whetstine suffered minor injuries in the crash. Engel was taken to South Coast Medical Center in Laguna Beach, where she was treated and released, a hospital spokeswoman there said. Whetstine was treated at Mission hospital and released.

Hall said Whetstine had been driving south in a Volkswagen Beetle on Laguna Canyon Road when he made a left turn onto the frontage road into the path of Engel’s car.

No citations have been issued, Hall said, but an investigation is continuing.

The resulting traffic bottleneck at the crash scene caused many problems, police said, but the California Highway Patrol reported no noticeable impact on freeway traffic inland from Laguna Beach.

“It happened far enough south that it didn’t affect us that much,” a CHP dispatcher said.