Woman Killed When Car Goes Over Embankment

A prominent member of an Encino synagogue was killed in West Los Angeles when the car her husband was driving swerved to avoid another car and plunged off the San Diego Freeway, a California Highway Patrol spokesman said Sunday.

Sheila Sloman, 57, assistant director at Valley Beth Shalom, and her husband, Stanley, were on their way to a reception about 10:20 p.m. Saturday and were attempting to enter the freeway at Santa Monica Boulevard, said Officer Ken Ford.

As Stanley Sloman was about to merge, he noticed another car, swerved to the right to avoid a collision and lost control of the wheel. Sloman’s car slammed into a concrete curb, crashed through a metal guardrail and flipped about 20 feet over the side of the freeway onto Ohio Avenue, Ford said.

When police arrived, they found the car overturned on the street and Sheila Sloman was pronounced dead at the scene. Stanley Sloman was taken to the UCLA Medical Center with minor injuries, Ford said.

“Everything is so muddled,” Sloman said Sunday afternoon as he made funeral arrangements. “I didn’t think she had died at first. I was sure that, if I was OK, she was OK too.”

At Valley Beth Shalom, synagogue members mourned the loss. Rabbi Jerry Danzig said he had received a phone call about Sloman’s death early Sunday and was still in shock. Danzig said Sloman, of West L.A., had begun working as an office manager, then worked her way up to assistant director, handling many of the administrative details for the synagogue’s 1,800 families.

“She was unparalleled in terms of her dedication to the temple,” Danzig said. “It’s a tragedy for us, a real loss.”