Crane Sets Off Fatal Accident

It is a collective anxiety shared by Southern California’s freeway fliers passing under the myriad overpasses and through the routine roadside construction zones. Early Thursday morning the feared became the real for Anjule Quitania.

As the 36-year-old father of five maneuvered a borrowed Ford Aerostar off the San Diego Freeway onto the Long Beach Freeway interchange where construction workers were building an overpass early Thursday morning, their crane slipped, causing a 66-foot steel beam to crash into a second beam, knocking it onto the road in front of him.

The minivan struck the 45-foot beam and pieces of scaffolding, then careened across the freeway and down a weedy slope, where it slammed into a tree trunk. Quitania was pronounced dead at the scene at 2:15 a.m. A construction worker also was toppled from the scaffolding and suffered minor injuries, the CHP said.

The accident, which closed the San Diego Freeway for five hours, remained under investigation Thursday. Authorities said it was unclear how the crane lost control of the large gray beam, but said it resulted in a “domino effect” that sent debris directly into Quitania’s path.

“There was just no way around it,” said CHP officer Rick Rodrigues, who notified Quitania’s family of what he called a “freak accident.”

Officials from the contractor, Ball, Ball and Brosamer, known as 3B’s, visited the accident site and spoke to Quitania’s family Thursday.

“We’ll do whatever we can to ease their pain,” said company President Ron L. Bruce. “Obviously, our greatest sympathies go out to them.”

The Danville, Calif.-based firm, which was awarded the $24.8-million contract in August 1995, suffered a crane accident on another project near the Harbor Freeway in July 1995, killing one worker. Caltrans officials said the crane tipped because its support jacks were not fully extended. Bruce declined to discuss that accident, which is the subject of a lawsuit.

Cal/OSHA officials said they had inspected seven complaints involving the contractor since 1990, but only one--the crane accident last year--resulted in penalties. The agency fined 3B’s $32,900, but the firm has appealed.

Caltrans officials said they had inspectors at the site at the time of Thursday’s accident, and will pass on their findings to Cal/OSHA. A Cal/OSHA investigator was sent to the site Thursday.

Officials from Quitania’s employer, Baseline Plus, did not return phone calls.

Friends and family who gathered at the Carson home Quitania shared with his wife, Gina, and their five children, who range in age from 4 to 16, were in shock that the amiable oil surveyor and Naval Reserve member had died.

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It was about midnight Thursday, when his eldest daughter, Lovingly, woke her father, who had emigrated to California from the Philippines many years ago, and fixed him dinner before he went to work.

As an oil surveyor, Quitania could be called out onto the freeways to jobs at all hours. So it was business as usual when his pager sounded, summoning him to take a short ride to Paramount at an hour when he would have the fast lane pretty much to himself.

Quitania usually did not say where he was heading, but on Thursday he scribbled a quick note saying that he was heading to an oil shipping terminal in Paramount.

Lovingly said the other odd fact surrounding her father’s death is the fact that he wasn’t driving his own car. His Ford was jacked up in the driveway so he could install new brake pads, so he took her boyfriend’s minivan.

What saddened her the most was that her father wouldn’t be able to see her new daughter, Darling, grow up.

“I didn’t have a granddaddy and I told my dad how happy I was that Darling has one,” said Lovingly, an Eagle Tree High School student. “Now she will never really get to know him.”

During the afternoon, family friends streamed into the Quitanias’ home to offer condolences. Lolita Briggs had just seen Quitania on Sunday, when they went out for a night of karaoke, and was in a state of shock.

“I just can’t believe this happened,” she said. “I just can’t accept that he’s dead. He was such funny, fun person.”

Many friends recalled that for Thanksgiving last week, Quitania brought snow to the house from the Angeles National Forest so that the kids could have a snowball fight in the front yard.

“He was the kind of guy who would help anyone,” said family friend Vathana Sok. “He would let anyone live with him if they needed a place to stay.”

Carlos Go, 30, moved in with the family five months ago and said he will miss Quitania terribly.

“I saw him last night before he left,” said Go. “It’s weird that I won’t see him again.”