Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: FUNKED1 on July 27, 2004, 08:41:07 PM
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Please give some for my buddy's daughter. (http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/9252287.htm?1c) He got laid off last week and now this. She's 15 or 16.
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passworded news site.
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
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dude sorry to hear.
prayers tonight
<>
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Indeed, I will pray for her and family.
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Damn I hope they weren't drinking. I learned my lesson after screwing up the suspension and hitting a curb. 3 deaths is a hell of a price to pay for stupidity. Hope she pulls through. :(
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That's horrible Funked, so sorry to hear that. She's in my prayers.
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Same here.
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Sometimes life is a real kick in the head. Will remember them Funked.
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Sorry for the bad news funked. I hope it turns out okay.
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I shoulda mentioned that she is the one who is alive. She has a head injury and a lot of upper body injuries, but she's responsive and they think she will recover.
And I think it will come out that alcohol was involved. Three 20-ish guys getting HS freshmen girls drunk...
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Yet another real world demonstration of the "safety" of little tin can cars.
Indeed, if there were 5 of them in a Cavalier, the car was probably in excess of its weight limit anyway which certainly wouldn't have helped it any.
J_A_B
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Hitting a moving van square in the back at 70 mph plus is going to be game over in anything smaller than an M1 tank.
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Sorry to hear this. Thinking about her and her family.:(
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Sad .... you have my prayers my friend .. :(
I hope it turns out well for her funked....
It's definitely going to alter the way she views (and handles) the rest of her life. There will be lots of emotional scars.
Regards,
Badger
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Funked, you missed my point entirely.
They might not have hit the truck at all if they were in a car that could actually cope with the weight of 5 people. A Cavalier can't; that car is a complete piece of crap. Immediate cause of the accident seems to be Failure to Control, and at highway speeds in small cars overloading or improper loading is a COMMON contributing factor in such accidents.
J_A_B
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deepest sympathies for your friend and his daughter.
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Thats sad :(
Hopefully she will make a full recovery
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Sorry to hear that this happend.
She will be ok and live a long happy life still :)
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Sorry Funked.....hoping for hope....tell the dad prayer is powerful and he has ours.
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Very sad story. I can't imagine how your friend feels. My prayers are with his daughter.
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Funked, I'll offer up both prayers and praise...that she's alive.
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More articles:
http://www.trivalleyherald.com/Stories/0,1413,86~10671~2299194,00.html#
Alcohol could be cause of accident
Coroner releases identities of four victims of fatal I-680 crash
By Simon Read, STAFF WRITER
Evidence suggests alcohol may have been a factor in the Monday night accident that left four young people dead and one critically injured on Interstate 680 near Pleasant Hill, the California Highway Patrol reported Tuesday.
"There was some physical evidence of opened bottles of hard liquor and cans of beer," CHP Officer Tom Maguire said. "But we won't know for sure until we have toxicology and autopsy results."
The accident occurred at 7:15 p.m. on southbound I-680 near Treat Boulevard when a 1998 Chevrolet Cavalier collided with a New York Express moving truck, Maguire said.
The driver of the truck had pulled onto the right-hand shoulder of the road just north of the Oak Park Boulevard overcrossing to check on a loose strap, Maguire said. The driver got back in the truck just moments before the crash.
The force of impact ripped the car in half, ejecting Kassandra Kearns, 14, of Martinez from the right front passenger seat onto the roadway. She was transported to John Muir Medical Center with major injuries.
On Tuesday, the hospital had her listed in critical condition, Maguire said. She is expected to live. The car's remaining four occupants were killed, Maguire said.
On Tuesday, the Contra Costa County Coroner's Office identified them as Matthew Burgos, 18, of Pleasant Hill; Donald Scholter, 22, of Martinez; Kylie Stritt-Fernandez, 15, of Martinez; and the Cavalier's driver, Jacob Johnson, 18, of Martinez.
"All four were wearing their seat belts, and the air bags deployed," Maguire said. "It's just one of those situations where it was an unsurvivable crash."
Investigators are not sure if Kearns was wearing her seat belt, Maguire said.
The moving truck's four occupants -- all from San Francisco -- escaped injury, Maguire said.
Witnesses told investigators the Cavalier was traveling as fast as 85 mph just prior to the accident and weaving in and out of traffic, Maguire said.
For reasons unknown, the Cavalier lost control and swerved to the right, striking the rail that separates Contra Costa Boulevard from southbound I-680, Maguire said.
"The car starts to rotate in a clockwise direction," Maguire said. "The right front end of the car strikes the rail and goes slightly airborne. The whole driver's side struck the back of the truck."
The cause of the crash remains under investigation.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/9261140.htm?1c
Parents learn of tragic accident
By Nathaniel Hoffman
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
When their teenage daughters failed to check in Monday night, two angry and worried parents drove around together all night checking all of the girls' hangouts.
They didn't know that one girl already was dead, killed with three other friends in a high-impact crash on Interstate 680. The other girl lay in the emergency room at John Muir Medical Center -- not yet identified by doctors.
"She's made some bad decisions and evidently last night was one of them," said Mike Kearns, sitting outside the hospital Tuesday afternoon. His 14-year-old daughter, Kassandra Kearns, who likes to be called Kasi, remained in critical condition upstairs.
Kearns and her best friend, Kylie Stritt-Fernandez, 15, were riding in a Chevrolet Cavalier about 7:15 p.m. Monday when the car slammed into the back of a large mover's truck parked on the shoulder of I-680 near Treat Boulevard.
The car's driver, Jacob Johnson, 18, had swerved and skidded before the collision that tore the Cavalier in half, California Highway Patrol Officer Tom Maguire said.
Investigators found an open bottle of hard liquor and beer cans in the car. Maguire said alcohol may have been a factor in the crash.
Killed instantly were Johnson and Stritt-Fernandez of Martinez, Matthew Burgos, 18, of Pleasant Hill, and 20-year-old Donald Robert Scholter of Martinez. Except for Johnson, all three were sitting in the back seat. All wore seat belts, the CHP said.
The truck driver and three passengers were uninjured, the CHP reported.
Kasi and Kylie were students together at Vicente Martinez High School. Mike Kearns said he had dropped his daughter off at 4 p.m. Monday at a friend's apartment in Martinez to go swimming, with an agreement that she would check in at 8.
When he didn't hear from her, Kearns said he called Kylie's mother. The two began driving around looking for their daughters.
They checked County Hospital and left a note on Donny Scholter's door, before giving up about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday. Kearns said they hoped the girls were just hanging out somewhere.
"I didn't know what else to do," Kearns said.
When paramedics found Kasi, she had been thrown under the mover's truck. Because she wore only a bathing suit, doctors could not identify her. Then Tuesday morning, her father said, Kasi woke up enough to write down a phone number for a nurse.
Kearns was on his way to an appointment when his wife called him at 7:30 a.m. and they rushed to the hospital. Maguire said Kasi is expected to live.
People at Victoria's Cafe in Martinez, where Kylie and her mom frequently ate, described her as a beautiful girl.
"She had a beautiful face," said Evelyn "Peaches" Vanni, who was going to teach Kylie to knit.
Vanni's granddaughter, Rebecca Vanni, went to school with Kylie through eighth grade.
She said last time she saw her, Kylie had been working out and was proud of her progress.
"I feel really bad for her mom," Rebecca said.
Kasi met the three older boys at a graduation party about a month ago, her brother Tommy Taylor said.
"She's in the party life," Taylor said, and he had talked to her about slowing down a bit.
Matt Burgos, a recent College Park High School graduate, started a new job last week at a company in Concord.
"He's a very mature kid," said his mother, Yohlee Burgos.
His family had expected Matt Burgos home about 7 p.m. Monday. They got a visit from officers at 11 p.m. with the news of the crash.
Matthew Burgos was into breakdancing and hip hop and went to San Ramon almost every week to practice his moves, said his older brother, Sherwin Burgos.
"He wanted to get into music because of that," Sherwin Burgos said, adding that his brother was taking classes at Diablo Valley College and wanted to transfer to UC San Diego.
Amber Roberson, 19, said she met Jacob Johnson when he was 11 years old and a grade behind her in school.
"He was like a little brother to me," Roberson said. "He was always happy and outgoing. (Jacob) was funny, too. When I was upset he would slap me on the back or roll down the hill behind College Park (High School) to make me laugh."
CHP officers said Johnson had an address in Pittsburg, but the Contra Costa Coroner's Office said he was from Martinez. His family members could not be located for comment.
While Johnson was the outgoing type, Roberson described "Donny" Scholter as a quiet and laid-back kind of guy whom she met through friends a few months ago.
"It's weird," she said, "'cause I just saw them like two weeks ago."
Kelli Phillips contributed to this story.
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Originally posted by J_A_B
Funked, you missed my point entirely.
They might not have hit the truck at all if they were in a car that could actually cope with the weight of 5 people. A Cavalier can't; that car is a complete piece of crap. Immediate cause of the accident seems to be Failure to Control, and at highway speeds in small cars overloading or improper loading is a COMMON contributing factor in such accidents.
J_A_B
I would think that the driver being ****faced drunk and driving like a maniac might have been a bigger factor than overloading.
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Down there do they put little grave yards beside the road where an accidident kills kids, seems that way up here. We had one that killed 4 last year and there are still 10 or more little shrines there.
Very sad Funky to get killed or badly injured so young.
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PS Thanks everybody, it looks like she is going to make it.
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sorry funked1 I am glad she will make it.We will be happy to include her in our prayers.
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my deepest sympathies for your friends situation......very sad :(
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Funked Prayers are included from my family to the Kearns Family and the other Families. We are glad she made it. We also pray that she will have a speedy recovery.
Sad situation, very sad. :(
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Damn shame.........hopefully she will pull thru.
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"I would think that the driver being ****faced drunk and driving like a maniac might have been a bigger factor than overloading."
Of course the alcohol/gross recklessness was the greater cause, but that is no reason to ignore all additional contributing factors!
Anyway, it's a sad reality that kids these days seem to kill themselves through their own recklessness entirely too often. When I was in high school a few of my classmates killed themselves in a similar manner (alcohol/excess speed). My sentiment of "it was their own fault" made me rather unpopular at the time but I stand by it, then and now. I sympathize with their families who have to cope with the loss. That is the tragedy--losing your loved ones to something so pointless, so preventable.
J_A_B
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Even better news last night. They had put her into a coma to control intracranial bleeding but they decided to bring her out of it. She was waking up last night and acting pretty normal considering all of the drugs and pain. She is going to need surgery on her jaw but other than that I think it is just going to be plastic surgery and a lot of healing.
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Sorry to hear about this Funked, sad stuff. :(
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Message from Mike:
Hi all,
Just wanted to send out a quick update.
Kass was actually sitting up and talking, lucid conversation.
Thanks to all of you for your kind words and prayers during this hard time.
The coroner I spoke with last night said that in 30+ years he'd never seen anyone survive a crash of that magnitude.
Words cannot adequately describe the amount of gratitude I have in my heart.
Thanks again
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This may turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to that young lady.
Wake up call.