News of the Arroyo
Title: | JPL van plunges off road; 3 killed |
Subtitle: | |
Date: | 2004-12-09 |
Summary: | December 9, 2004 - A tragic accident sends a JPL commuter van into the Arroyo Seco high in the Angeles Mountains. |
Author: | Gene Maddaus, Staff Writer |
Publication: | Pasadena Star News |
Content: | Wednesday, December 08, 2004 - ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST -- Three people were killed and seven others injured Wednesday when a packed commuter van heading to Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge plunged off a winding mountain road, tumbling 300 feet into a canyon. The van was traveling south on Angeles Forest Highway at 6:15 a.m. when it failed to negotiate a bend in the road and careened over a 2-foot-high berm. Three of the commuters were dead at the scene. Two of them, Jane Frances Galloway, 49, of Lancaster, and Dorothy Marie Forks, 53, of Pasadena were JPL employees. The third, Kerri Lynn Agey, 48, worked for Wackenhut Security, a contractor for JPL. Coroner\'s officials said that Agey was from Ontario, but records indicated she recently moved to Lancaster. The names of the injured were not released. All seven work at JPL and live in the Antelope Valley area: four from Lancaster, two from Rosamond, and one from Palmdale. \"It is a very, very sad day for all of us,\' said JPL spokesman Blaine Baggett. \"As you can imagine, we are deeply concerned for our employees and their families.\' A driver traveling behind the commuter van saw the accident and flagged down CHP officers, who hiked down into the canyon and notified other rescue workers of the accident. The van came to a rest on its wheels at the bottom of a streambed. One person managed to climb partway up the cliff, where he was met by rescuers. A passenger thrown from the van died at the scene. Two others died inside the van, where other victims were left hanging from windows or trapped under a collapsed roof for as long as an hour, authorities said. \"It\'s one of the most gruesome scenes I\'ve ever seen,\' said Mike Leum, chief of the Los Angeles County Sheriff\'s Department Search and Rescue Team. \"There was every type of trauma you would expect to see in this situation. There was a complete collapse of the roof onto the passenger area.\' Fred Tomey , a JPL supervisor, visited one of his employees at Huntington Hospital several hours after the accident. Tomey said the man, who suffered a broken leg and ankle, slept through the accident. \"When he woke up, he thought he was at the gate but he was in the gully,\' Tomey said. \"He remembered sitting by the side and then a helicopter picked him up.\' About 100 rescuers from several agencies came to the scene, which is about 10 miles north of La Canada Flintridge. They used the Jaws of Life to cut apart the 2003 Ford E-350 van , and helicopters to hoist the victims to safety. Two survivors with severe injuries were flown by helicopters to area hospitals. The other five were taken by ambulance. The driver, a 55-year-old Lancaster man, suffered a broken neck. \"For the amount of people in that van, we\'re all real lucky there weren\'t more people killed,\' said Los Angeles County fire spokesman Mike McCormick. Five patients were taken to Huntington Hospital in Pasadena. Providence Holy Cross Hospital in Mission Hills and Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Valencia each took one patient. Connie Matthews, spokeswoman for Huntington Hospital, said all five passengers taken there were conscious when they arrived. \"They\'re visibly shaken but very calm,\' she said. Two passengers were in critical but stable condition, including the driver and a passenger with a broken back . Two others were in fair condition and one was in good condition. Two more were released by mid-afternoon. All 10 passengers were in their 40s or 50s. There were five men and five women. All were wearing their seat belts, according to the CHP. Six of the passengers were JPL employees, two were NASA employees, and the other two worked for private contractors for JPL. CHP investigators are piecing together the evidence to attempt to determine the cause of the crash. There were no skid marks. CHP Officer Vince Bell said there was no evidence to suggest that speed played a role in the crash. The road was neither wet nor icy, and though it was foggy at the higher elevations in the forest on Wednesday morning, visibility was good at the scene of the accident. Galloway was a manager in JPL\'s business operations office. Forks worked in human resources, and Agey was an administrator. \"It\'s like a family thing,\' said JPL oceanographer William Patzert. \"Things like this just stop everybody in their tracks.\' Baggett said about 450 of JPL\'s 5,500 employees commute to the lab in about 30 vans like the one that crashed. They originate from locations throughout the L.A. basin and use vehicles leased by employees from outside the lab. JPL spokesperson Natalie Godwin said it was \"too early to tell\' whether any of the JPL-organized van pools will discontinue operation or change routes. Staff writers Kimm Groshong and Sonya Geis and the Associated Press contributed to this story. -- Gene Maddaus can be reached at (626) 578-6300, Ext. 4444, or by e-mail at gene.maddaus@sgvn.com . |
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