Boy Killed, 5 Hurt in Chain-Reaction Crash

A 25-ton dump truck careened out of a chain-reaction accident Friday and plowed into a bus-stop shelter, killing a 5-year-old Sylmar boy in front of his mother and injuring her and four other adults.

It was the third freak traffic accident in Southern California this week in which children or their parents traveling together perished.

Witnesses said several people ran from the shelter as the metallic-blue truck towing a backhoe, out of control after an accident in the intersection, knocked over a light standard and a fire hydrant before slamming into the bus stop. The truck bore down on them so fast that mother and son could not escape, they said.

“People were crying and screaming. They were in terrible pain,” said a witness, a man who declined to be identified. “I’ve seen accidents before. But not like that one.”

Terrance Taylor Watson, who turned 5 last month, was pinned beneath the right side of the truck. He was pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said.

A grim-faced coroner’s aide lifted the small boy’s limp body, wrapped in a plain white sheet, as scores of onlookers gathered around the accident scene, strewn with twisted metal, glass shards and splintered wood planks.

The boy’s mother, Lucy Taylor, 35, of Sylmar, was hospitalized in stable condition at Granada Hills Community Hospital with a broken knee and leg in addition to back and neck injuries, family members said. She has two other children, a 9-year-old son and a 7-year-old daughter, relatives said.

Terrance, who was going to attend kindergarten in the fall, was described by relatives as a happy child, not at all shy, who loved to dance and sing to entertain his family and friends.

“He was a happy-go-lucky kid,” said his grandmother, LaVerne Westmoreland of San Fernando. “He loved his mama, he loved his brother, he loved his sister.”

It was the latest in a string of random vehicle accidents that struck parents and children.

On Sunday evening in Commerce, metal debris kicked up from a roadway punctured the gas tank of a van driven by a Norwalk woman. The van burst into flames, burning three children to death. Their mother escaped but died of burns Monday. On Thursday, a Rancho Cucamonga couple were killed when a semi-trailer truck flipped atop their van in Ontario, leaving their five children uninjured in the back seats.

Police said Friday’s accident occurred about 11 a.m., when a Jeep Cherokee traveling west on Devonshire Street attempted to turn south onto Balboa Boulevard and collided with the dump truck. The Jeep spun around, striking a white Buick Skylark.

The truck, meanwhile, angled off toward the sidewalk, dragging the backhoe on a trailer, and knocked over a fire hydrant, sending water shooting 40 feet into the air, then flattened a traffic signal and hit the bus shelter.

Two others in the shelter, besides Taylor, were hurt. A 61-year-old man was treated at Northridge Hospital Medical Center in Van Nuys for multiple fractures, said Bob Collis, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department. A 70-year-old woman suffered a possible broken wrist, he said. Their identities were not made public.

Albert Cortez, 19, of Mission Hills, the driver of one of the vehicles involved, was treated at Granada Hills Community Hospital for hip and neck pain and was released, Collis said.

Randy Ayers, 36, of Granada Hills was treated at the same hospital for leg bruises and released, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Valley Traffic Division detectives said they were looking into the possibility that the driver of the Jeep, who they did not identify, made an illegal turn.

A woman who identified herself as the sister of the Jeep’s driver described her brother as “beside himself.”

“He was very upset,” she said. “What else can you say when a little boy is laying there dead?”

An employee of a Shell gas station across the street from the bus stop, who identified himself only as “Dale,” said he heard a crash and then saw people running.

After calling 911, he said, he ran to the bus bench and saw the body of the child, who apparently died of severe head injuries. “I had to walk away,” he said, staring at the pavement and shaking his head. “I just couldn’t stand to see it.”

Before she was taken by paramedics to the hospital, Taylor gave her mother-in-law’s telephone number to a couple of witnesses, who called Westmoreland.

“It was hard to believe, and I was scared to death because I didn’t have all the details,” Westmoreland said, as she joined about a dozen other relatives waiting for news at the hospital.

Lloyd Prevost, a cousin, said he heard about the accident on the radio but learned only later that it involved his family. “These days, it’s not hard to believe,” he said. “You just don’t want it to be your family.”

Said his mother, Mary Prevost: “You have to expect the unexpected.”

Times staff writer Beth Shuster contributed to this story.