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I-680 crash kills four
Girl survives grisly Pleasant Hill accident
By Kelli Phillips
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
PLEASANT HILL - Four people were killed and a girl critically injured in an accident on Interstate 680 when a car was torn in half after slamming into the back of a parked moving van Monday night.
Around 7:15 p.m., a 1998 Chevrolet Cavalier hit a moving van that was stopped on the right shoulder of southbound Interstate 680, just north of the Treat Boulevard exit.
Witnesses said the Cavalier was driving erratically when the driver suddenly lost control and spun into the back of the 1999 California New York Express moving van, police said.
Three men and one woman in the Cavalier were killed instantly. A second female passenger was ejected from the car and thrown under the moving van.
Matt Randolph, 18, was in his back yard on Esther Drive, which backs up to Contra Costa Boulevard and I-680, when he heard the crash.
"It was the biggest crashing sound you can imagine, with glass breaking and metal scraping," Randolph said.
Randolph ran with his father to the accident scene, where he climbed the retaining wall onto the freeway. After seeing no signs of life in the passengers in the car, Randolph saw the girl laying under the van.
"I climbed under the van and she was barely breathing," he said. "I tried to talk to her, ask her name, but she couldn't talk. I just grabbed her hand and told her to stay with me until the paramedics got there."
The unidentified juvenile girl was flown to John Muir Medical Center in critical condition but was expected to survive, a CHP spokesman said.
Police say the 27-year-old driver of the moving van had pulled over to check the strap on the back door and had just gotten back into the vehicle when it was hit by the Cavalier.
The driver of the van and his two passengers were not injured in the accident.
California Highway Patrol Officer Tom Maguire said it was unknown if drugs or alcohol played a role in the accident. The cause is under investigation.
The names and ages of the victims were unknown. Autopsies are scheduled for today