Pringle, Aides OK After Car Overturns in Crash

Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle and three staff members were involved in a collision in Burbank early Tuesday that caused his vehicle to overturn and land upside-down, but nobody was seriously injured, authorities said.

Investigators said Pringle, a Republican from Garden Grove, and his staff members were struck by another motorist who ran a red light and may have been saved because they were wearing seat belts.

“It would appear to me that seat belts were a major factor, since there were minor injuries in an accident in which the vehicle had flipped,” Burbank Police Lt. Don Brown said.

The crash occurred when Pringle and the staffers were headed to Burbank Airport for a 6 a.m. chartered flight to Northern California. After the crash, the speaker’s group “crawled out” from underneath his car and rushed to make the flight to Hanford, where Pringle was scheduled to speak at 7:30 a.m., said John Nelson, Pringle’s spokesman.

Staffer Brad Wilkinson was driving the state-issued car about 5:45 a.m. headed west on Thornton Avenue. That’s when a 67-year-old woman ran a red light at Buena Vista Street and broadsided Pringle’s car, police say.

Pringle, who was in the front passenger seat, suffered a cut on his elbow and Wilkinson reported a stiff neck after the crash, but both refused medical treatment, Burbank police said. The other two passengers in the vehicle--B.J. Watrous and Jeff Flint, Pringle’s deputy chief of staff--were not injured, authorities said.