Family in wreck makes Rohnert Park birthday party, with CHP assist

A 13-year-old girl and her family on their way to her birthday party in Rohnert Park almost didn’t make it after they were involved in a four-car collision on the Petaluma River bridge.

The girl’s friends and family from Marin County were traveling north in two cars around 7:30 p.m. when the front car slammed on its brakes to avoid stopped traffic on the bridge, Sgt. Erik Egide said.

The second car rear ended the first, triggering a chain reaction that cause two other unrelated cars to be rear-ended, Egide said.

“Traffic was pretty snarled,” he said.

No one was injured, and all four cars were able to be moved off the bridge and into a parking lot on the north end, Egide said.

Not wanting the crash to ruin the birthday girl’s special day, CHP officers decided to help make sure she got where she was going.

“We took them all up to the birthday party in the patrol cars,” Egide said.