Woman Dies After Car Runs Off I-5, Is Hit by Train

A La Mesa woman was killed in a freak accident Monday when her car veered off southbound Interstate 5 near San Onofre and landed on railroad tracks, where it was demolished moments later by an Amtrak commuter train, authorities said.

None of the 150 passengers was injured on the train, which had slowed in an effort to avoid the collision, California Highway Patrol Sgt. Gary Smith said.

The victim was identified as Gina Delpozo, 25, of La Mesa by a San Diego County deputy coroner.

A San Onofre State Park employee who had been eating lunch in a nearby building climbed a fence and dashed to the tracks in a vain attempt to rescue Delpozo just before the 2:20 p.m. collision about 5 miles south of San Clemente, Smith said. The employee, identified as Nuuuli Segi, was about 50 feet away when the car was hit by the train, estimated to have been traveling at 45 to 50 m.p.h.

Park Ranger Cindi Bates, 32, as well as two state beach lifeguards and an off-duty paramedic traveling on the train tried unsuccessfully to revive Delpozo, who was pinned inside the vehicle. She died at the scene, Smith said.

The train was delayed about 90 minutes. Amtrak spokesman Arthur Lloyd identified the train as No. 576, which had left Los Angeles at 12:45 p.m.

Smith said Delpozo’s car was southbound about a mile south of Basilone Road when it left the roadway and tore through 150 feet of brush, some of it dense, and a four-strand barbed-wire fence, then soared off an embankment about 15 feet into the air. The vehicle landed right-side up, straddling the tracks that parallel the freeway on the west.

Segi scaled a 6-foot chain-link fence and ran up an embankment just as the train hit the vehicle, Smith said.

“He was en route to the vehicle when it was struck by the train,” Smith said. “Needless to say, he was a bit shook up.”

There is a gentle curve at the spot where the car left the freeway, but, Smith said, “we don’t have any idea why she ran off the road.

“The coroner will do a blood analysis. We have no witnesses as to her driving before going off the freeway.”

Smith said the accident was a freak occurrence.

“It would be very difficult to do this on purpose,” he said.

Bates and others at the scene tried to revive Delpozo until paramedics arrived.

“We removed her from the vehicle and laid her flat on her back a few feet from the car and started with oxygen and suction to remove the blood from her airway,” said Bates, 32, of San Clemente. “We continued with oxygen and suction and were able to maintain an airway with her until the paramedics arrived.”

“One of my co-workers . . . said (the victim) wiped out about 10 feet of real heavy sagebrush on the bluff, knocked into a guardrail and a chain-link fence and still had enough momentum to become airborne over the bluff and land on the track,” Bates said. “That’s moving.”

The Amtrak engineer was riding in a cab at the front of the train as it approached the vehicle, Smith said.

“The engineer sits very exposed in the back of the car and the locomotive is . . . pushing it,” he said. “As soon as he saw the vehicle stopped on the tracks, he threw on the emergency brake and ran toward the rear of the car to avoid the collision.”

“We figure it hit at 45 to 50 m.p.h. and pushed the car 1,028 feet down the tracks,” Smith said. Train speeds of up to 90 m.p.h. are permissible along that stretch of coast because there are no grade-level crossings, he said.

“Psychologically, he was shook up,” Smith said of the engineer, “but he’s physically fine. There were no injuries to anybody on the train. There was extremely light damage to the train.”

“He certainly did everything he could do to avoid a collision,” Smith said.