Albert Gonzalez was heading up Interstate 5 to Castaic in a bobtail truck during Friday’s furious storm, struggling to see the road as the rain poured down.
He was near Hasley Canyon Road when he spotted a gray Toyota Tundra pickup truck that had flipped over and was resting on its roof.
“I could hardly see anything in front of me. I had my wipers on high and they couldn’t keep up (with the rain). I got up there and I thought what is this?” said Gonzalez, a Van Nuys resident.
The father of five stopped and saw people running toward the truck to render aid.
Then suddenly he realized the good Samaritans and the people trapped in the truck could be struck by oncoming traffic because of low visibility.
Gonzalez, the lead warehouse worker at McCalla Co. in Van Nuys, quickly maneuvered his truck to shield the overturned pickup.
“I just jumped in there and blocked those lanes for the safety of the other people and myself. I blocked it until the highway patrol got there,” he said.
He was among about a dozen people who stopped to help, and they all got soaked but didn’t care, he said.
“Someone cut the seat belts and we got them out. They had minor scratches. Then we directed traffic until the CHP got there,” he said.
• PHOTOS: The aftermath of Southern California’s deadly February storm
One of the other people who stopped told Gonzalez the pickup’s female driver hit the center divider, lost control and it flipped, sliding across the freeway.
Both people in the truck declined medical treatment, he said.
Despite his heroic efforts, Gonzalez does not think of himself as a hero.
“I didn’t think about it. I just did it for the safety of everybody,” he explained.
His boss, Richard McCalla, learned about Gonzalez’s adventure Monday morning and said he was not surprised.
“He’s always cool, calm and collected and I think that’s why it happened,” McCalla said of the decision Gonzalez made. “If we ever went to war, I’d want him at my back, that’s for sure.”
CHP officer Michelle Bond said it’s not unusual for people like Gonzalez to help when they come upon an accident scene.
“I’ve actually had truckers jump out of their trucks and give me tie-cables and help me move refrigerators out of traffic lanes,” she said. “In my 17 years I’ve had a lot of people help.”
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