1 Killed, 1 Hurt in Truck Plunge
A 16-year-old girl who was riding in a pickup truck that plunged off winding California 39 in San Gabriel Canyon north of Azusa was hospitalized Saturday after spending the night in the wrecked truck, apparently unaware that her companion’s body lay about 50 feet away.
Neither the survivor nor the driver, a man about 25 years old, was publicly identified pending notification of relatives.
Ruben De Avila, watch commander at the California Highway Patrol’s Los Angeles communication center, said that the southbound pickup swerved right toward a cliff, then sharply left and off the road, stopping about 300 feet down.
CHP investigators said the driver was thrown out as the truck careened down the steep slope about a mile north of San Gabriel Dam. The girl awoke in the dark after the accident and wrapped herself in a blanket to wait.
When daylight came, De Avila said the girl climbed to the highway, where a motorist picked her up. Paramedics treated her for multiple lacerations before taking her to Foothill Presbyterian Hospital in Glendora.
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