2 Die in Head-On Collision

A head-on crash on Santa Rosa Road near an elementary school killed two people early Monday and left a hospital administrative assistant clinging to her life.

The accident occurred about 8 a.m. when a red 1986 Toyota Corolla hatchback driving westbound on the two-lane road between Camarillo and Thousand Oaks veered across the center line and hit a white 1993 Ford Thunderbird, authorities said.

Thunderbird passenger Sadie Marie Green, an 85-year-old great-grandmother from Simi Valley, died at the scene from multiple injuries. The driver, Green’s 56-year-old daughter, Arlene Brown of Oxnard, was critically injured. The Toyota’s driver, George David Snider, 41, of Chatsworth, also perished.

After undergoing surgery to staunch internal bleeding and stabilize her condition, Brown was expected to spend Monday night in Los Robles Regional Medical Center’s intensive care unit, said hospital spokeswoman Kris Carraway.

California Highway Patrol investigators don’t know why Snider, who was on his way to work in Camarillo, swerved into Brown’s lane on a flat stretch of road about 500 feet west of Vista Grande Drive.

A witness driving behind Snider’s Toyota said he was veering all over the road. Investigators have not ruled out the possibility that Snider was intoxicated, but he did not smell of alcohol or have any evidence of drinking in his car, said Officer Dave Cockrill, a CHP spokesman.

“We did have a report of this red Toyota traveling erratically--passing, driving on the shoulder, crossing over the center divider,” said CHP Sgt. Douglas Howell. “We will certainly be investigating his sobriety.”

As is routine in such accidents, the coroner’s office will try to determine whether Snider was under the influence of alcohol or other drugs.

By late Monday, few details were available about the crash’s two female victims.

A spokeswoman for Simi Valley Hospital confirmed that Brown--a grandmother--works as an administrative assistant there.

Her family has requested that no further information about her be released, said spokeswoman JoLynn de la Torre. “It is a request we are bound to honor,” she said.

Keeping vigil over Brown’s hospital bed and planning for Green’s funeral left the immediate family frayed, Los Robles spokeswoman Carraway said.

“They said they can’t talk to anyone about anything right now,” she said. “They’re crying and upset and vulnerable.”

Some sheriff’s officials called to the crash were en route to a funeral for a slain colleague in Oxnard.

Authorities quickly closed off the section of Santa Rosa Road where the accident occurred, and traffic began cutting through the adjacent Bridlewood neighborhood to get around the roadblock.

Police dispatched a Specialized Incident Response Team to investigate the wreck, Howell of the CHP said. “They will be looking at the incident in its entirety, from any mechanical to human causes.”

The crash resurrected years-old traffic safety fears among area residents. Neighbors stopped by the crash site to make sure none of their loved ones were involved.

The accident occurred about a quarter-mile west of the 400-student Santa Rosa Elementary School, where administrators and parents have been lobbying for a decade to get a stoplight on the road, often used as a commuter shortcut. A county public works official said the light is scheduled to be installed by Aug. 31, the start of the school year.

“It used to be that you would see a car on Santa Rosa every once in a while,” said administrative assistant Ramona Fuentes, who has worked at the school for 20 years. “Then, when Moorpark had its big boom, people would use this as a shortcut between two freeways. It’s practically become a freeway itself. The drivers are just crazy with the chances they take and the speeds they go.”

One CHP officer said the 5.7-mile stretch of Santa Rosa Road is not particularly dangerous, but that it is an area where drivers tend to exceed the 55 mph speed limit.

“It’s a heavy commuter road, and there’s nowhere to pass,” said Officer Ron Erickson. “People are anxious to get wherever they’re going. . . . I can’t recall the last fatality on the road, but we get a major injury crash here about once every other month.”

Given the reports of Snider’s erratic driving, Butch Britt, county deputy public works director for transportation, said the safety of the road was probably not an issue in this crash.

“We think it’s a safe road,” he said. “It is not a high accident rate road. . . . If somebody is going to cross a double-yellow line into oncoming traffic, there’s not a whole lot you can do.”

In the last dozen years, there have been at least three fatal accidents on the road.

Nursery owner Tadashi Fujii died in 1995 when his car was rammed by another vehicle and slammed into a power pole.

In 1991, Camarillo building contractor David Min was killed in a crash on the road. Min’s accident occurred five years after his wife and son died in a collision less than a mile away on the same road.

Times Community News staff writer Jason Takenouchi contributed to this report.