SANTA CLARITA / ANTELOPE VALLEY : Girl Killed, 1 Seriously Hurt in Collision

Two cars that collided on the Antelope Valley Freeway hurtled down an embankment Monday and one landed atop the other, killing a 16-year-old driver and trapping her 16-year-old passenger in the lower car, police said.

“The cars ended up on top of each other, upside down,” said Capt. Tom Costello of the Los Angeles County Fire Department, who rescued the girl from the bottom car. “I had never seen anything like it.”

Lindsey Wood, 16, of Palmdale, who was thrown 40 feet from the car she was driving in the 10:30 a.m. accident, died as she was being airlifted to a hospital, authorities said.

A Palmdale girl in the passenger seat, who authorities did not identify, was in serious condition at Northridge Hospital Medical Center Monday night, a nursing supervisor said. Both were students at Highland High School in Palmdale.

The driver of the other car, Maria Villanueva, 22, of Palmdale, and her 3-year-old daughter, Jessica Del Refugio, were not seriously injured and were treated and released from Antelope Valley Hospital, said Officer Miguel Siordia of the California Highway Patrol.

Villanueva was wearing a seat belt and the child was in a car seat.

Costello said that when he arrived at the scene, the trapped girl was screaming for help.

“I crawled into the car and pulled the girl out,” said Costello. “The car had caught fire but some passersby put it out right away with their (car) fire extinguishers.”

Costello said the driver was not wearing a seat belt, but her passenger was.

A small crowd gathered at the site where the autos ended up in a vacant lot behind a newly built K mart in the 39600 block of 10th Street West near Avenue P, and tried to calm the victims until paramedics arrived, said Costello.

The girls and Villanueva were both headed north on the Antelope Valley Freeway when the teen-ager’s car veered into Villanueva’s lane and both cars went out of control, Siordia said.

“It was amazing (Villanueva and her daughter) got out of it as well as they did,” said Costello. The mother and her child were able to climb out of their car.