Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Woman Passenger, 75, Dies in Crash

A 75-year-old woman died Wednesday morning after the car she was riding in was struck by a second vehicle that ran a stop sign, authorities said.

Martha Temple of Santa Clarita was in the front passenger’s seat of a Ford Escort making a left turn from Decoro Drive onto McBean Parkway about 11 a.m., said Officer Wendy Moore of the California Highway Patrol. The car was struck by a Mercury Marquis traveling northbound on McBean Parkway at 45 m.p.h.

“The right front of the Mercury struck the front center of the Escort,” she said. “It was almost like a head-on collision because of the angle.”

Temple, who was wearing her seat belt, suffered no visible external injuries, said Los Angeles County Fire Department Capt. Harry Thy. However, CHP officers said she went into cardiac arrest at the scene, was revived briefly by cardiopulmonary resuscitation and pronounced dead at 11:37 a.m. at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Valencia.

Donald Parent, 72, a Santa Clarita resident driving the Ford Escort, and James Kraft, 71, a Playa del Rey resident driving the Mercury Marquis, were taken to Newhall Memorial with minor injuries, CHP Officer Michele Esposito said.

Kraft told officials he thought he was passing through an intersection without a stop sign and that a stop sign was a block or two up ahead. Kraft was not cited at the scene for running the stop sign, but an investigation is pending, Esposito said.