Student in Critical Condition as Playful Joy Ride Goes Awry

EL TORO —  What started as a mild teen-age protest during a school Hippie Day celebration turned ominous Thursday as eight Trabuco Hills High School students were involved in a single-car accident that left one youth hospitalized in critical condition.

Andy Welken, 15, of El Toro suffered head injuries after he was thrown from a 1988 Hyundai Excel driven by schoolmate Elizabeth Bailey, 16, of Mission Viejo, California Highway Patrol officer Ken Dailey said.

Andy was taken to Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center, where he underwent surgery, hospital spokeswoman Sue Donofrio said.

The seven other students, all sophomores, were treated for scrapes and bruises at Saddleback Hospital and Health Center and released, hospital and police officials said.

The seven escaped serious injury because “we were all using our seat belts,” Elizabeth said. “Except for Andy.”

Several of the seven were sharing seat belts in the car, which is designed to seat five.

Principal William Brand said Thursday was Spirit Day at the high school, at 27501 Coirdova Road, near Santa Margarita Parkway and Los Alisos Boulevard. The four classes each picked a different theme to celebrate Homecoming Week, with the sophomores choosing Hippie Day, he said.

Dressed in colorful tie-dye T-shirts and leather vests, the students piled into the Hyundai shortly before lunchtime “as sort of a protest,” because school administrators would not allow the sophomores to hold a mock “sit-in,” Bailey said.

Freshmen and sophomores are not allowed off the campus, said Brand, who declined to say whether disciplinary action would be taken.

California Highway Patrol officers said the teen-agers told them that Bailey had been playfully swerving from side to side as they drove down Rimcourt Drive, a steep road about three miles from the campus.

Coming out of a swerving maneuver, Bailey lost control of the car, which then hopped a curb and scraped against a cement wall for about 50 feet. The car flattened two street signs before flipping over and throwing out the victim.

“I heard a crash and ran outside,” said Louan Olsen of 21282 Queensbury Road.

She saw the dazed students crawling out of the upside-down vehicle. “They were very shaken,” she said. “The girls were screaming. I don’t know what kept them from being killed. I’m amazed.”

Olsen called the CHP as some of the students ran about a half-mile to their original destination, the home of Susan Foley on Ashby Way.

Foley, an aerobics instructor who knows several of the victims, accompanied the students to the hospital, where she waited as they were treated for minor scrapes and bruises.

“The kids were scared,” she said. “I think they all learned a big lesson today.”