Woman Injured in Plunge Off Highway

A 75-year-old Ojai woman was in stable condition Wednesday after the van she was driving veered off California 150 near Lake Casitas and plunged 200 feet into a ravine.

Maria Norbury was traveling west on the highway, about five miles from Ojai, at a point where the road is being repaired after a landslide. That stretch has been reduced to a single, bumpy lane, which curves around the hillside. Stoplights control traffic at both ends of the construction zone.

Norbury was traveling along that one-lane section about 7 a.m. when she apparently lost control of her van after it hit a bump, said Officer Michael Moriarty of the California Highway Patrol.

“There are several bumps and you are supposed to be going about 20 mph,” Moriarty said. “Apparently she was going a little faster than that, hit one of the bumps and never made the curve. She went straight off the road.”

Norbury’s vehicle crashed down the ravine, Moriarty said.

It took rescue workers more than an hour to pull her from the van, he said. Firefighters and paramedics had to be certain that the van would not continue to plunge before Norbury could be removed from the vehicle.

She was taken to Ojai Valley Community Hospital for treatment of cuts, abrasions and a cracked vertebra, Moriarty said. She is being kept at the hospital for observation, he said.