LOCAL : Iowa Motorist Killed on Freeway

An Iowa motorist was killed early this morning when the car she was driving drifted into a center divider and slammed into a paramedic van that was parked on the San Diego Freeway.

Tanya Irlmeier, 19, of Audobon, Iowa, was driving southbound at 1:30 a.m. near the Sand Canyon Street off-ramp when the accident occurred, California Highway Patrol Officer Keith Thornhill said.

For an unknown reason, she veered her Toyota Cressida into the emergency lane, where an Orange County Fire Department paramedics van was parked, Thornhill said.

The paramedics had parked the van in the lane to retrieve a piece of equipment that was left from an earlier minor traffic collision, Thornhill said. Two members of the paramedics crew were standing along the freeway, and neither was injured when Irlmeier hit the van.

She was killed instantly, he said.