2-Year-Old Thrown From Car in Crash Suffers Minor Injuries

A 2-year-old girl suffered minor injuries after she was thrown from a car that rolled over after it was rear-ended by a charter bus in a car-pool on the San Diego Freeway in Seal Beach, authorities said. The child’s parents were also treated for minor injuries. No one inside the bus was reported hurt.

Adashia Jolviet of Los Angeles was treated for head and hand cuts, which she suffered when she was thrown through a window in her family’s Volkswagen Jetta, which rolled over and landed upright, California Highway Patrol spokesman Lyle Whitten said.

Whitten said the child was listed in good condition at Long Beach Memorial Hospital.

Her father, Robert Lee Williams, 28, of Los Angeles, who was driving the vehicle, also suffered head and hand cuts and complained of back pains. He was listed in stable condition at Harbor General Hospital. Adashia’s mother, Kim Jolviet, also of Los Angeles, suffered minor injuries and was not taken to the hospital.

Whitten said the accident occurred when Williams slowed to 35 m.p.h. in the northbound car-pool lane in response to a CHP officer who had weaved his patrol car back and forth as a warning for a stalled car about half a mile ahead.

As his and other cars slowed, a charter bus slammed into the Jetta. The bus driver, Caren Vartgess, 44, of Huntington Beach, who was carrying 22 passengers to a Mormon temple in Los Angeles, told CHP officers he had been driving about 55 m.p.h. at the time of the collision, Whitten said.

On impact, the Jetta veered toward the median, rolled over once and landed on its wheels, throwing the child from the car.

“It’s absolutely incredible she wasn’t hurt,” Whitten said.

Whitten said that it was “obvious she hadn’t been in the required restraining seat.”

No citations have been issued pending further investigation, he said.