7 in Small Car Die in Fiery Freeway Crash With Truck

Seven passengers in a Dodge Omni were killed and two others were critically injured when their compact car was crushed in a fiery head-on collision with a freight truck on the Pomona Freeway near Chino, authorities said Friday.

The crash, which occurred at 10:50 p.m. Thursday as travelers took to the region’s highways for the Independence Day holiday, shut down both sides of the freeway near Mountain Avenue for more than seven hours.

While paramedics dealt with the dead and injured and police rerouted traffic into neighborhoods, firefighters battled rivulets of diesel fuel-fed flames that streamed along the road shoulder.

California Highway Patrol Officer Ruth Johnson, one of 40 police and rescue personnel at the crash site, described the scene as “a real disaster. All those bodies in the roadway, especially children. It was hard to look at.”

The victims, several of whom were burned beyond recognition, included four children--a 12-year-old, a 2-year-old and two infants--and three adults, all in the Omni, Johnson said. A young girl and an older woman who were riding in the compact car were taken to San Bernardino County Medical Center. They were listed in critical condition, authorities said. The third survivor, the injured truck driver, was hospitalized for cuts and neck pains.

The dead were taken to the San Bernardino County coroner’s office, where medical examiners were able to identify three of the victims by Friday afternoon. Although CHP officers determined that the crushed car was registered to an address in Compton, deputy coroner’s investigator Jim Sedgwick released the names of only two victims: Robin Hart, 23, of Los Angeles, and her 8-month-old daughter, Genesha Searles.

Names of the other victims will not be released until relatives have been notified. Autopsies were not expected to occur until Monday, Sedgwick said.

Nine people were crowded into the tiny 1985 Omni when it struck a station wagon as it was heading west on the freeway. The Omni caromed over a 60-foot-wide dirt median into the eastbound fast lane and, after glancing off a second car, was struck head-on by a big-rig truck. There were no reports of injuries to passengers of the station wagon or the second car that was struck by the Omni.

Johnson said the impact of collision between the Omni and truck hurled several victims from the car. Although police were unable to say how many were ejected, San Bernardino County Medical Center nursing supervisor Helen Ramirez said that the two survivors’ lack of burns indicated there was a “good possibility” that they had been thrown clear.

One survivor, a 4-year-old girl, was being treated for fractures and head injuries. A woman in her 20s underwent surgery for a broken leg, cuts and a burn on her arm, Ramirez said.

CHP Lt. Ron Newton said that the ejection of several passengers indicated that some were not wearing seat belts. Newton said the number of passengers in the car would be limited by law to the number of seat belts.

“As small as an Omni is, I can’t imagine they could have more than six belts,” Newton said.

Police said they have no clues as to why the Omni veered out of control. Several witnesses in the Oldsmobile station wagon that was struck by the Omni told police that the Omni’s driver appeared to be slumped at the steering wheel as it struck their car.

Johnson said that when the Omni and truck collided, both vehicles burst into flames. The truck driver, identified by police as Armando Arreola, 51, of Mexico, managed to steer his vehicle onto the right shoulder as the cab burned around him. Arreola, who was taken to Chino Community Hospital with minor injuries, told police he had been ferrying televisions, artificial flowers, clothes and other goods.

“It was phenomenal luck that he got out,” Johnson said. “The cab was burned up completely and the box trailer wasn’t much better.”

Firefighters, police and paramedics from San Bernardino County, Ontario and the Chino Hills and Chino Valley areas were hampered at first by a fuel spill from the truck that burned along the roadside, authorities said.

“The whole right side of the freeway was a wall of fire,” said one Chino Valley firefighter.

By Friday morning, holiday travelers using the freeway were backed up at least two miles on either side until police reopened all lanes at 6:30 a.m., Johnson said.