Child Survives Fall Off Truck Onto Freeway

Five-year-old Vanessa Valadez fell out of the back of her mother’s pickup truck on the busy Santa Ana Freeway Monday afternoon and will not only live to tell about it, but will be able to say she escaped serious harm in the tumble.

Witnesses told California Highway Patrol officers that a string of lucky breaks saved the La Puente girl.

According to CHP Officer Paul Caldwell, the girl was riding in the back of the pickup with her sister, 9, and brother, 10. Their mother, Mary Valadez, was driving.

The pickup bed was covered by a camper shell, the rear window of which was open, and Vanessa was kneeling against the closed tailgate, witnesses told the CHP.

About 2:10 p.m., as the truck was traveling north in the right-hand lane near La Palma Avenue in Anaheim, Vanessa apparently got hold of the latch and opened the tailgate, Caldwell said. Out she went.

“She skidded on her stomach and went end-over-end a couple of times,” Caldwell said, adding that several motorists traveling behind the pickup were forced to swerve to avoid hitting her. “They did a real good job of avoiding her,” he said.

Then she just rolled off the roadway and onto its right shoulder, out of harm’s way, Caldwell said.

Witnesses told police the truck was traveling about 55 miles per hour when the accident occurred. Mary Valadez later said she thought she was going about 40.

Condition ‘Very Stable’

Initially taken to the UCI Medical Center in Orange, Vanessa was transferred to Chapman General Hospital late Monday afternoon. A spokeswoman there said the child was in “very stable” condition Monday night with “a lot of bumps and bruises” but apparently not even one broken bone.

“It’s really kind of hard to believe,” she said.

Caldwell said no charges have been filed in the case but that an investigation was continuing. The mother did not violate the state’s year-old law mandating an adult presence with children in the back of a pickup because the law does not apply to trucks enclosed by a camper top, he said.