Crash Kills Passenger, Injures Teen Driver
A 16-year-old boy died and another was critically injured when their car wrapped around a pine tree Wednesday night only a mile from the driver’s home.
Los Angeles police said the driver lost control of the car, a 1998 Honda Accord that belonged to his parents, while traveling east at a high rate of speed in the 13700 block of Chandler Boulevard at 8:50 p.m. The car struck the tree east of Buffalo Avenue.
The passenger side of the car received the full force of the impact, police said, instantly killing James Aaron Gordon.
The driver, whose name police withheld, was critically injured in the crash and had to be extricated from the wreckage by city firefighters. Paramedics took him to Northridge Hospital Medical Center.
Police were still investigating the cause of the accident Wednesday, but had ruled out alcohol as a factor.
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