3 dead as 10 cars crash on Pacific Coast Highway
The overall scene looking west on the Pacific Coast Highway at Riverside Avenue, after being involved in a multiple fatal accident Saturday afternoon in Newport Beach in Southern California. (Jan. 15, 2011) Credit: AP
LOS ANGELES — A car veered into oncoming lane of the Pacific Coast Highway, setting off a "very violent" 10-vehicle pileup that left three people dead and three others injured Saturday, authorities said.
The famed roadway was packed with beach traffic on the summer-like day when two vehicle collided in the initial crash, then eight more became entangled in the wreckage, Newport Beach police Lt. Bill Hartford said.
The highway was reopened around midnight, about 10 hours after the collision apparently triggered by a Ford Taurus going more than 100 mph, Hartford said Sunday.
Three adults from two vehicles were declared dead at the scene and three others were taken to hospitals with injuries, one of them critical.
The Orange County coroner says the driver of the Taurus, 27-year-old Julia Allen, of Newport Beach, was killed. Witnesses say her car was airborne when it collided with a Toyota Tacoma pickup.
Killed in the pickup were 49-year-old Christopher De La Cruz, of Laguna Niguel; and 69-year-old Linda Burnett, of Santa Ana.
Three other people were taken to hospitals with injuries, including a motorcycle rider who is in critical condition.
Two cars were overturned, some people were trapped inside their vehicles, and it took hours before some of the dead could be removed from the wreckage.
"Officers responding found glass strewn on both sides of the roadway, up onto the sidewalk, indicating a very violent traffic collision," Hartford said.
Sam Schudi was driving one of the cars involved, with his wife Kelli in the passenger seat. They say an oncoming car hit a car two vehicles in front of them and became airborne.
"I heard the screech and the sound, and all the sudden I saw this car come flying in the air," Kelli Schudi told KCAL-TV. The couple was not among the injured.
The crash was on a section of the PCH known locally as the West Coast Highway. It remained closed hours after the accident and was likely to be shut down through the night.
The famous highway runs along the ocean through many of California's most scenic stretches and most expensive neighborhoods.
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