Del Mar
A 16-year-old Del Mar boy died of massive internal injuries after a car in which he was riding slammed into a tree. The driver, another 16-year-old boy from Del Mar, was arrested at the hospital on suspicion of felony drunk driving and manslaughter, said a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol in Oceanside.
The driver’s name was not released because he is a minor. He was also hospitalized.
Jeffrey James Foote, who was one of three passengers, died at 6:15 a.m. Monday at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, about six hours after the accident, said Jerry Bohrer of the CHP.
Bohrer said the four were traveling west on Via de la Valle, west of La Gracia at about 75 m.p.h. when the driver went off the road and broadsided a tree.
“It was with such force that the passenger door was pushed into the car 2 1/2 feet,” Bohrersaid. He said that Foote, sitting in the front passenger seat, took the brunt of the impact and was pinned inside the car.
The other passengers, 16-year-old Ruben Gutierrez and 16-year-old Kevin Kirby, both of Solana Beach, were taken to Scripps Memorial Hospital in Encinitas. Kirby was treated and released Monday, and Gutierrez was discharged from the hospital Tuesday, a hospital spokesman.
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