I-5 Worker Killed by Suspected Drunken Driver

A 27-year-old Moreno Valley man working as a contractor for Caltrans was killed instantly when a truck driven by a suspected drunken driver slammed into him from behind at full force, pinning him up against a flatbed truck early Friday morning on Interstate 5. The victim, Salvador Hernandez, and Christopher Torres, 25, of Bellflower were picking up street cones behind a flatbed truck driven by a co-worker, Gary Jones, 42, of Oceanside, when the truck slammed into their vehicle. The three men, working for a Carlsbad company called Pave Tech, were preparing sections of the freeway for repaving. Michael Wayne de la Garza, 33, of San Clemente was driving a 1999 Ford F-250 pickup at an estimated speed of 60 mph when he suddenly drifted out of his lane and into the work area, running over 350 feet of cones before slamming into the back of the flatbed truck.