Driver Leads 30-Minute Chase, Jumps Off Sorrento Valley Freeway Bridge

SAN DIEGO, CA — A police pursuit that began on a Hillcrest-area street Tuesday afternoon ended about a half-hour later in Sorrento Valley, where the fleeing motorist pulled over on a roughly three-story-high freeway bridge and jumped off of it, winding up injured and under arrest.

The driver, whose name was not immediately available, refused to yield when a San Diego Police Department officer tried to pull him over for a seat belt violation at Fifth Avenue and Washington Street about 2:45 p.m., SDPD spokesman Scott Lockwood said.

The man fled to the east for a short distance before getting onto state Route 163 and fleeing to the north, eventually merging onto Interstate 805 and then Interstate 5 while passing through northern San Diego.

Near the Del Mar Fairgrounds, the fleeing motorist exited Interstate 5, then entered it again, this time heading south.

Reaching a ramp at the merger of Interstates 5 and 805, the man finally pulled to a stop, got out of the white Mercedes-Benz sedan he had been driving and leaped over a concrete barrier on the western side of the elevated roadway, according to the California Highway Patrol, which by then had taken over the pursuit.

The man landed in a patch of shrubbery, where officers arrested him. Paramedics then took him to a hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries suffered in the roughly 30-foot fall, CHP public affairs Officer Salvador Castro said.

— City News Service