Fatal accident on 5 Freeway in Sun Valley halts traffic

I'm Marla Tejas. Thanks so much for watching. We want to get straight to some more breaking news that we have with Stu Mendel. He is over this deadly incident. This is northbound five in the Sun Valley area. Stu, what do we know about this one? Well, we know this one is something we're not going to poke any fun at at all. It is definitely a fatal crash. And it looks like one of those big rigs was either driving very slow, maybe stopped. Not really sure. We can't be that type of accident investigator. But that small white pickup truck that you see in that shot basically did not stop at all and went right into the back of it. Now LA City Fire Department arrived out here very quickly but they were unable to give any assistance to that driver of that vehicle was pronounced dead here on scene and when I say they were unable to meaning that person had passed before they arrived here on scene. The fire department still here on scene California Highway Patrol here as well. Now we're hearing it is a multi-vehicle crash and we see this other car right here and somebody very distraught in that back seat and then you also have the California Highway Patrol talking to a lot of these folks. Not sure if they were involved in the crash because we don't see any major damage on that car at all and but if it is a family member I don't know how they would have found out about it so quickly and got here. As far as the ride goes, it's going to be on the northbound 5 at the Sheldon off-ramp. You can see that off-ramp being used right there. The backup, very substantial. Making our way up here, we saw this before the Burbank airport area, so you get an idea of all that backup right there. If the northbound 5 is part of your drive this afternoon I would try to avoid it and since we are on our on our time meaning Marla and I's time and on the internet I'm going to show you something else that we don't have any confirmation about but Chris the pilot today of Sky Fox said hey there's something else going up over by Osborne and sure enough this is going to be on the southbound five clearly unrelated to anything that's happening but This one seems to be a very fresh incident, indeed. Multiple vehicles scattered across the freeway there. You've got a couple facing the wrong way. And, yeah, and the backup is, like I said, this just, just happened. So right now it's to the 118. Hopefully the California Highway Patrol will get here shortly. So the 5 Drive through the Sun Valley area, I would just avoid it this afternoon. And if you're on the roadways, just from what we're seeing out here, just be a little extra careful. this afternoon okay let's uh go over this again because now we have found another accident to report on we tossed to you with this crash northbound five right there at Sheldon uh that was fatal now we have where you just were that was also on the five that's also on the five just uh real quick with can you uh do it with uh with the camera so this is going to be northbound five at Sheldon says northbound five at Sheldon they have all lanes shut down got a fatal accident out here involving a big rig and a vehicle that collided with that big rig uh they're going to have the lanes they're closed and you can see California Highway Patrol there they've got a couple of vehicles and a number of officers down there but this other one this is a second crash that has nothing to do with the one that we're talking about just because of the distance and This is going to be on the southbound 5 freeway. I believe that's going to be Osborne. Let me just take a quick peek right there. Yeah, that's going to be Osborne. And this is multiple vehicles, and you don't have any first responders here at all at this time. And at the end of the lanes, we can kind of make out some of the damaged vehicles out there. There's a number of them. You've got a front-end collision, one facing the wrong way. That big rig stopped. You've got two vehicles right there with severe damage, airbag deployment. You can see that as well. Hopefully, everybody's okay. And then three other vehicles that are off on the side of the road. Again, this just happened, and it looks like somebody's holding a small child there. Again, I just hope that everybody is okay in this accident. It has nothing to do with the fatal on the northbound side. The distance is quite a bit. It's just a bad coincidence. I'm just saying anybody getting on the road today, just be a little extra careful out. Absolutely. So this is the southbound side that we're looking at. Multiple vehicles involved. I'm not seeing emergency crews on site just yet. No, there aren't any. And I'm sure that has something to do with the time. Like I said, you can see this crash literally just happened. Probably, yeah, just probably as we pulled up on the fatal, and this one happened, and it's probably going to be a few minutes before we start seeing some emergency vehicles arriving out here. And, oh, there you go. There you go. You got one just arriving and stopping all traffic. So California Highway Patrol clearly knows about it, and as far as first responders go, I'm not sure if they're going to go through the traffic or just use the on-ramp, off-ramp. All these guys and gals, they communicate with each other, meaning the California Highway Patrol is definitely going to talk with L.A. City Fire, at least with their dispatchers, on the easiest way for them to access it. So hopefully they'll get some ambulances out here if anybody needs any. There you go. That's also really dangerous, just running out there, you know, because everybody is probably a little bit panicked and anxious to get around this. but again California Highway Patrol now here on scene running a traffic break and uh he'll probably be he or she will make his way over there and start talking to some of these folks finding out if they need ambulances and what kind of aid okay this is uh so much going on on the five right now in Sun Valley so let's just recap this what we're looking at right here through Stu Mundels' camera this is the southbound side of the five where literally this accident multi-vehicle accident has just happened. You're seeing the first LAFD engine literally pull up to the scene right now live. There is that CHP traffic break and we're watching this all unfold. Unclear how many vehicles. You're seeing several though here. Some already pulled off to the shoulder and there's that CHP break and unclear injuries. We certainly hope that it is not a fatal accident like we were reporting on the one on the northbound side at Sheldon all northbound lanes are shut down it's officially a SigAlert that's just a fancy term for lane closures and those northbound lanes right there at Sheldon are shut down because of that fatal accident involving uh at least two vehicles including a big rig also was in the the fatal one right yes definitely on the fatal i can go back to that i just want to keep an eye oh no go ahead You stick where that action is, too, whatever you see fit. Okay. All right. And I was just talking to Chris, the pilot, this afternoon. We can fly a little bit closer if we can. If Whiteman lets us, we can go get a little bit closer to this one. Now that we're getting a lot of the other vehicles out of here, these are the damaged ones. So we're getting a better idea of how many vehicles were involved. And we're counting, if that big rig was involved, which I think it is, there's a little bit of minor damage in there, that's six vehicles right there, and then you have another three on the side of the road. Not sure if these are people that are good Samaritans that are stopping to help or are also involved in that crash. You can clearly see they're making their way over to that one car where that woman has a child. We'll see it better as we get a little bit closer. She's behind the sign. Don't know where the chair came from. And so you've got paramedics making their way over here right now. But the one that does concern me is this vehicle with the airbag deployment. And there were people looking inside and talking to the driver and the passenger. But definitely a lot of damage out here. Here comes the paramedics to start checking these people out. Don't see anybody trapped. That's a good, that's a very good sign. It seems like everybody is going to be able to be taken out of the vehicles on their own, as it would be. That's the one that was turned around. Also, you know, this is just one of those ones. You're on the road, driving along, and the next thing you know, your day has definitely changed. Hopefully your life hasn't changed. But, again, the fire department here, paramedics here, and first responders. Oh, gosh. Oh, that's got to be a family member right there coming and collecting the child. And I'm hopeful that the child is okay. I would think the child is, otherwise the paramedics would be here already. But definitely, this is the stuff we see from the helicopter so many times. And sometimes you get really emotional. You can see that that woman grabbing her child, clearly happy to be reunited and probably scared to death when getting the phone calls, even if they were saying everything's okay. You know, it's a mom and their child. Marla, I think you can totally identify with that. Absolutely. It got me choked up to see that emotional reunion, unclear if she just got the call and if she just ran to be able to be with her baby. And he seems to be OK, to your point. Otherwise, the first responders would be checking him out. But no doubt his nerves and emotions are rattled. And you can understand that because, again, I mean, they're bringing over a fender or a bumper from a vehicle part, let's just say, from what could be a nine-vehicle accident that we just happened to stumble upon, if you will. This is the southbound 5 in Sylmar. We saw the crews literally arrive, LAFD, that first engine just arrived moments ago. This was all because we were over another accident just down the way, northbound 5 in Sun Valley. We're calling this one here, Sylmar, in Sun Valley. That is where all lanes are shut down because of a fatal crash at Sheldon. So this is I went up to you, Stu, with one accident in mind, unfortunately, very sadly, a tragic one, a deadly one. And then we have this one that we're now reporting on unexpectedly. With that said, we are going to step away, Stu, for our next two minute break. But if you could sit tight, unless you get other orders, we want to come back to you. We just need to step away for this quick two minute break. Not a problem. We'll be here. OK, very good. Thank you, Stu.