18-Year-Old Ventura Woman Ejected, Killed After Losing Control of Vehicle on Freeway

An 18-year-old Ventura woman was killed instantly Wednesday afternoon when she was ejected from the vehicle she was driving and was struck by an oncoming pickup truck, authorities said.

Erika Angelica Gonzalez, who lost control of her 1987 Ford Bronco II on the westbound side of the Santa Paula Freeway and ended up next to the eastbound lanes, was pronounced dead at the scene of the 1:35 p.m. accident, according to Dave Cockrill, spokesman for the California Highway Patrol.

Eastbound traffic was backed up more than 2 miles, well past the Ventura Freeway interchange, as CHP officers spent more than three hours investigating the accident.

Gonzalez was returning home from visiting her mother at work, where she processes contracts for the state Department of Veterans Affairs.

The Ventura College student was not wearing a seat belt, Cockrill said. “She probably would have survived had she had it on,” he said.

Mark Thompson, 20, of Santa Paula, who was Gonzalez’s passenger, was taken to Ventura County Medical Center, where he was treated and released for minor injuries, according to the CHP and a nursing supervisor. Thompson was wearing a seat belt, Cockrill said.

Gonzalez was driving in the westbound slow lane at no more than 55 mph in a 65-mph zone when she lost control of her vehicle just west of the Victoria Avenue overpass, Cockrill said.

The Bronco swerved across the fast lane, hit the dirt center divider and rolled over at least once, crashing through the 6-foot-tall oleander bushes in the median, he said.

The crumpled vehicle came to rest right side up beside the fast lane of the eastbound freeway, Cockrill said.

Theodore Johnson, 38, of Fresno was driving a 1992 Chevrolet pickup truck in the eastbound fast lane when he saw the Bronco coming toward him and attempted to swerve into the right lane, Cockrill said.

Johnson, who was looking over his right shoulder to see if the other lane was clear, said he heard but did not see Gonzalez’s body strike his truck, according to Cockrill.

A CHP spokesman later said that Johnson, who escaped injury, will not be cited.

An orange chalk outline marked where Gonzalez’s body came to rest 50 feet from her vehicle, with shattered glass, two black sneakers and a sleeping bag scattered in between. Its right front tire was sheared from its axle.

Although an autopsy will not be performed until today, a spokesman with the Ventura County medical examiner’s office listed the preliminary cause of death as traumatic head injury.

The CHP is looking for another vehicle, possibly white, that was also traveling west and may have played a role in the accident. Cockrill urged anyone with information to contact the CHP.

Gonzalez, an honor roll student, graduated from Ventura High School in 1996 and was attending Ventura College, where she was considering a variety of career options, such as oceanography and animal training, her mother, Elena, said Wednesday night from the family’s midtown Ventura home where family and friends had gathered.

“There were so many things she enjoyed doing,” Elena Gonzalez said. “She wasn’t sure what to [major in].”

She was outgoing and friendly to the point where parents of her friends often vowed to adopt her if tragedy should befall Elena and her husband, Jose, her mother said.

“They just felt like she was their daughter,” she added.

Her daughter loved camping, hiking, singing with friends in local pop bands and traveling--she journeyed more than once to Mexico. “She’d save her money up and take off,” Elena Gonzalez said.

Portions of some weekends were spent with her brother Daniel, 16, volunteering at the state Department of Veterans Affairs, where their mother has worked for 17 years.

That is also were Elena Gonzalez last saw her daughter, who came in Wednesday afternoon to say that she had lost her wallet and worried that someone would purchase items with her credit cards.

Erika was also concerned that she would be late for work at 101 Latte Cafe in Ventura, where she was Employee of the Month last month, according to her mother.

“I told her, ‘Don’t worry about it. There’s more to life than that,’ ” Elena Gonzalez said. “I told her to drive home carefully.”

Those were the last words she spoke to her daughter.

Times staff correspondent Nick Green contributed to this story.