4 Children, Adult Die in 2 Crashes

Five people, including four children, were killed in two traffic accidents Sunday. Two of the children were trapped in a burning car on a freeway, and the other two died in a head-on collision that killed a third passenger and injured five people.

In the head-on collision, a woman was driving a Toyota Corolla north on Wilmington Avenue at 101st Street in Watts when she crossed the center line at 3:30 p.m. and collided with a southbound Chevrolet Blazer, said Los Angeles Police Sgt. Geoff Taylor.

A female passenger in the Toyota was killed along with a 1-year-old girl and a boy, 2. The five other injured occupants included at least two children, Taylor said.

“The most heart-wrenching thing about this is that if they had used child-restraint seats, you could almost guarantee that the children would not have been killed,” Taylor said. “Here’s an opportunity to have saved at least two lives.”

The woman died at the scene and the two children died a short time later at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center, Taylor said.

The other five occupants in the Toyota suffered injuries ranging from minor to serious. The names of the victims were not released pending notification of relatives.

In Glendale, Natalie Mendez, 5, and her sister Miraya, 8, were killed and their parents, Fernando and Josefa Mendez, both 50, suffered burns over 30% of their bodies when their car was rear-ended on the Glendale Freeway, authorities said.

The California Highway Patrol said the children were riding in the back seat of the car, which was traveling slowly on the center divider while trying to enter the northbound lanes near Mountain Street. It was rammed about 12:30 p.m. by a vehicle allegedly going faster than the speed limit, investigators said.

The severity of the collision knocked the slow-moving vehicle out of control, ruptured its gas tank and caused it to burst into flames, the CHP said. The two children were trapped in the car, investigators said.

The driver of the other car was not seriously injured but was being treated at Glendale Adventist Medical Center. All but two of the northbound lanes on the freeway were closed for several hours because of the accident, the CHP said.