Car in 100-M.P.H. Chase Crashes : Accident: Driver trying to evade officer escapes with minor injuries although his auto flipped over and landed in a restaurant parking lot.

EL TORO — In a midday traffic accident Wednesday that had some motorists frozen in fear, the driver of a Pontiac Firebird fleeing from police on Interstate 5 lost control of his car at an off-ramp, bounced into the air and flipped over twice before crashing through a fence and landing in a restaurant parking lot.

Despite the spectacular crash, the driver escaped with only minor injuries and no one else was hurt.

The California Highway Patrol said Leslie Clemmer, 46, of Costa Mesa, was fleeing from a motorcycle officer who gave chase on the San Diego Freeway after seeing Clemmer traveling at about 100 miles per hour.

Investigating Officer Tina Brown said Clemmer was arrested on suspicion of felony drunk driving and evading a Highway Patrol officer, also a felony.

A witness, Jim Hutton of Laguna Beach, said he was sitting in his car parked behind a Bob’s Big Boy Restaurant at the El Toro Road exit shortly before 1:30 p.m. when he was startled by the sight of the white Pontiac flipping in the air and flying toward him.

“It scared the hell out of me because it came right through the brush and he landed two parking spaces in front of me, and I thought, ‘Oh, my God.’ He was doing end-over-ends,” Hutton said.

“I was the first one to run over to the car and I thought for sure he was dead,” Hutton added. “And he was lying on his back, all sprawled out across the front seats, and it seemed he just went with the flow of the car as it was rolling.”

Perched on top of the wrecked vehicle--its wheels broken and body smashed--was a half-empty bottle of vodka that Brown said was found in the car after the accident. CHP Officer Tony Camilleri, who responded to the accident scene, said “there was an odor of an alcoholic beverage inside the vehicle.”

Camilleri said the chase began on the southbound San Diego Freeway near the Culver Drive exit in Irvine when a CHP officer on motorcycle, Brian Habegger, spotted Clemmer speeding at about 100 miles per hour.

Camilleri said Habegger was unable to catch up with the vehicle and terminated the pursuit at the Lake Forest Drive exit on Interstate 5 in El Toro.

Clemmer then apparently tried to leave the freeway at the next exit--El Toro Road--when he hit the exit ramp’s concrete curb and lost control.

Witnesses said the car bounced off the curb and flew over vehicles on the freeway’s entrance ramp and hurtled through some brush and a chain-link fence before landing in the parking lot of the Bob’s Big Boy restaurant.

“From the time he lost control of the car to where he landed, it was about 200 feet,” Camilleri said.

“His tires were still smoking,” said Brad Kurtz, 23, of Newport Beach, who came upon the car within seconds of the accident.

Betty Ammon and her daughter, Lisa, said they were preparing to enter the freeway’s southbound traffic when they saw Clemmer “driving like a maniac.”

“He was airborne right in front of us,” Betty Ammon said.

As a tow truck pulled the wreckage from the parking lot, restaurant manager Brenda Young said it was fortunate that the accident happened after the lunch rush at the restaurant. “This could have been a catastrophe,” she said.

She was also amazed that her employees were not parked in the spaces where the car landed. “I even park here,” she said, pointing to her car parked several yards away. “God was with us today.”

Times staff writer Zan Dubin contributed to this story.