2 Motorcyclists Without Helmets Die in Accidents

Two unhelmeted motorcyclists died of head injuries in accidents in Ventura and Santa Paula over the weekend, authorities said.

John Lake, a 19-year-old Santa Paula man, died late Saturday after his motorcycle broadsided a car that pulled in front of him Friday night, police said. He flew 40 to 50 feet down the street after the crash, they said.

“If he had been wearing a helmet, he would probably be beat up badly, but alive,” Santa Paula Police Sgt. Jim Horn said. Lake, an insulation installer, died Saturday night at Ventura County Medical Center.

A state helmet law passed this year makes it illegal to ride a motorcycle without a helmet after Jan. 1, 1992.

In Ventura, a 55-year-old Concord, Calif., man died Sunday morning after he was thrown from his motorcycle on the Ventura Freeway near Johnson Drive, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Alden Medinas died at the county medical center of massive head injuries after losing control of his cycle Saturday night, CHP Officer Greg Draper said.

In the Santa Paula crash, Lake was riding his motorcycle west on Harvard Boulevard Friday evening when he crashed into a car driven by Rosemary Munoz, 20, of Santa Paula, Horn said.

Munoz was trying to turn onto Harvard Boulevard from a shopping center parking lot when Lake hit the car, Horn said. Police do not know how fast the cyclist was traveling, the officer said.

Munoz was not injured and has not been cited, Horn said. “She said she didn’t see him,” he said.

Lake’s mother, Lee Landrum of Piru, said her son had ridden motorcycles for about two years and usually wore a helmet. Though officers thought Lake might have survived with a helmet, his mother said that some doctors told her that “the impact was so bad, a helmet wouldn’t have made any difference.”

Nat Baumer, the physician who initially treated Lake at Santa Paula Memorial Hospital emergency room, disagreed. “I think a helmet would have made a big difference,” Baumer said. “Most of his injuries were to his face and head, and that could have been absorbed by his helmet. . . . I see kids come in all the time with these dented helmets, and that could have been their heads.”

The CHP’s Draper and Santa Paula police said they expect lethal head injuries to drop sharply next year because of the helmet law. But Draper said spinal injuries that often result from high-speed motorcycle crashes will still occur because “if you have a helmet on, then the neck would absorb most of the impact.”

Lake, a former Santa Paula High School student, worked for his father’s insulation company in Los Angeles, his mother said.