Car Race Ends in Death of Teen-Ager : Accident: Four others are injured in crash as auto goes out of control and strikes a light pole.

An early morning street race Saturday by two young motorists left a 16-year-old girl dead and four other teen-agers with major injuries when the speeding car they were in spun out of control and sheared a concrete light pole on Brookhurst Street, police said.

The crash occurred about 12:18 a.m. when a 17-year-old Anaheim girl driving a 1994 Honda Civic and a 16-year-old Pomona boy driving a 1974 Datsun 240Z were racing southbound on Brookhurst, Anaheim police said.

Joan Hartman, 53, who lives in an apartment about a block away, said the Honda “looked like it fell from the sky.”

“It was unbelievable. It looked more like an airline crash than a car accident,” Hartman said. “I knew whoever was in that car was dead or close to it. I figured they had to be going 100 miles per hour.”

Police were unable to say how fast the cars were going but they were traveling at “a high rate of speed.”

The frightening impact was heard several blocks away by sleeping residents, who rushed from their homes to the scene. They arrived to find the Honda, crumpled and crushed, with the light pole lying across the rear of the vehicle.

Two victims were trapped inside. One, Stefanie Russo, 16, a Loara High School student, was pronounced dead at Martin Luther Hospital in Anaheim. She died of multiple traumatic injuries, a spokesman for the Orange County coroner’s office said.

Firefighters had to cut through the mangled car to extricate Russo and a teen-age boy. The Anaheim Fire Department sent 29 firefighters, four paramedic engines and one emergency medical technician engine to the scene, where it took 15 minutes to remove the two trapped in the car. All of the victims were rushed to area hospitals. An unidentified teen-age boy was taken to Western Medical Center-Santa Ana with a severe spinal injury, two collapsed lungs and head injuries. The teen-ager, who police said is from Huntington Beach, was listed in critical condition.

The driver of the Honda, Natalie Espinosa, who graduated from Loara High School this year, was in critical condition with major head injuries. The other two passengers, both 16-year-old Anaheim boys, were in serious condition with broken bones and internal injuries.

Loara Principal Barry Escoe described Espinosa and Russo, who would have graduated next year, as good kids. “We are very saddened by what has happened,” he said.

The Datsun that police said was racing with Espinosa’s car was not damaged. Police said nobody in the Datsun was hurt, and the driver stopped and gave investigators a statement.

Police said the Honda began to spin at Brookmore Avenue, just north of Ball Road, and crashed into the light pole with such intensity that the driver and two passengers were ejected into the street, and the two other teen-agers were trapped inside the car.

The Honda jumped the curb in front of the New Horizons Senior Center and then slammed into the light pole in front of the China Ball restaurant at 875 S. Brookhurst St.

Irene McKee, 65, who lives in the senior center, said she had just turned out her lights to go to sleep when she heard “a God awful crash.”

“It scared the life out of me,” McKee said. She ran outside to her second-story balcony and saw the aftermath.

“I could hear music coming from a boom box and some young people talking, something about a fire. Then I heard all the sirens, from the police cars and the firemen,” McKee said.

She said the Honda was on the street facing north on Brookhurst, exactly opposite from the direction police said it was traveling.

“I started praying for the people inside. There wasn’t anything else I could do,” McKee said.

Vicki Henkes, who lives in a condominium a block west of the crash site, said she was in bed watching television when she heard the crash.

“All we heard was a horrible crash,” said Henkes, 48, a 15-year Anaheim resident and mother of a daughter. “You couldn’t avoid hearing it. It was horrible. There was so much crashing metal and glass, it sounded like a bridge collapsing.”

Henkes said the Honda may have hit the light pole at full speed because there was no screeching of brakes, just the crash into the light pole.

“This is a very bad street,” Henkes said. “This is not the first time we’ve had an accident here.”

Brookhurst Street is a major traffic artery running north and south, almost the length of Orange County, and is up to six lanes wide in some places.

More than 12 hours after the crash, bloodstains were visible on the sidewalk and street. Broken glass, a broken tree branch and car parts were strewn as far as 50 feet away. Friends of the victims visited the crash site throughout the day, and some left small bouquets of flowers on the sidewalk.

A friend of the injured teen-ager who was taken to Western Medical Center-Santa Ana said he had been invited by the group to join them “in hanging out” Friday night. The friend, who asked that his name be withheld, said he turned down the invitation because he already had plans for the evening.

He said he was awakened by a phone call about 2:30 a.m. from a friend who told him about the crash.

Times staff writer Tammy Hyunjoo Kresta contributed to this report.