Crash on Golden State Freeway Traps 3 People
Three Bakersfield residents were trapped for more than two hours Monday when a Ford Explorer rear-ended their pickup truck at about 60 m.p.h, pushing it into the back of a semitrailer truck stuck in a traffic jam on the Golden State Freeway, authorities said.
“When we first got there, we had three people who were awake, alert, conscious and talking, but pinned in the pickup truck,” CHP Officer Wendy Moore said.
Los Angeles County firefighters worked for more than two hours to dismantle the pickup truck to free the trapped motorists, who were airlifted to Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital, Moore said.
The driver of the Explorer, Wayne Reynolds, 35, of Castaic, was not injured in the crash, she added. He told investigators that he did not realize that traffic had halted until a car swerved in front of him as he approached the line of stalled cars on the northbound side of the freeway near the Magic Mountain Parkway exit, Moore said.
Wendy Wurster, 22, who suffered minor bruises in the accident, was admitted to the Valencia hospital, said a nursing supervisor. Her mother, Suzie Roggention, was treated there for minor cuts and bruises, authorities said.
Christy Matheson, 22, also of Bakersfield, was admitted to Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills, suffering from deep cuts on her left knee and back pains, a nursing supervisor there said.
Vincent Galarza, 36, of Caldwell, Ida., driver of the semitrailer truck, was treated for minor injuries and released, said a nursing supervisor.
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