CHP OFFICER OK AFTER 60-FOOT FALL.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

A California Highway Patrol officer escaped serious injury Thursday despite tumbling 60 feet down a freeway embankment along with a van that had been knocked over the edge.

Officer Ken Ericsson, 45, was making a routine traffic stop on the eastbound Ventura Freeway near Tampa Avenue at 1:30 p.m. when the van he had stopped was broadsided by a car, pushing the van and the officer over the side, said Officer Dwight McDonald of the CHP's West Valley Station.

``He hit a tree and tumbled down the hill,'' McDonald said.

Ericsson, who has worked virtually his entire 19-year career at the West Valley Station, likely would have been crushed if the van had tumbled all the way down the hill, McDonald said.

``The van got hung up on a tree. That's what saved him,'' McDonald said.``It didn't hurt the tree - that tells you how big the tree was.''

The officer was treated at Northridge Hospital Medical Center for cuts to his head and pain to his arms and legs and released. No one in the van was injured.

Eastbound traffic came to a standstill beyond Topanga Canyon Boulevard and the westbound side was jammed by spectators.

The collision occurred when an 18-year-old woman driving a Honda Accord clipped a Ford Taurus as she entered the freeway from the Tampa on-ramp and attempted to maneuver around slower traffic, McDonald said.

Her Honda then veered out of control and hit the van, parked on the right shoulder, broadside. The officer had approached the van from the passenger side window as a precaution.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: Officers check a car that hit a van on the eastbound 101 Freeway, causing a CHP officer to be knocked down an embankment.

Gene Blevins/Special to the Daily News