Girl, 9, Dies After Being Hit by Out-of-Control Truck

A 9-year-old jogger has died of injuries she suffered when she was hit by a truck driven by a college football player who was adjusting ice packs as he drove, authorities said.

Sandra Pierce a fifth-grader at Emblem Elementary School in Valencia, died Tuesday, a day after she and two 8-year-old companions were hit while jogging near the college.

Counselors from the Saugus Union School District spent Wednesday helping classmates cope with their grief. “The kids did really well today,” said Debbie Link, one of Sandra’s teachers. “They got to hear good things about Sandra and they got to say good things about her.

“Sandra was a good student, but more than that she was an enthusiastic student,” said Link. She remembered Sandra as a girl who was eager to help others.

“She would take the new students around and show them the school. She was a very caring person.”

Sandra was jogging Monday night with other members of the Santa Clarita Youth Running Club when a Toyota pickup truck driven by Joshua Caine jumped a concrete curb on Rockwell Canyon Road and struck her and the other girls.

Caine, 20, of Newhall, had just left football practice at College of the Canyons when the accident occurred, said Sheriff’s Deputy Mark Slater. Caine reportedly suffered an injury at the practice and was applying ice packs to his leg as he drove, Slater said. He lost control of the vehicle, which swerved to the right and onto the sidewalk, Slater said.

One of the other two girls, who were not unidentified, was treated at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital and released. The other girl remains at the hospital with what Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies described as moderate injuries.

Caine was not arrested and has not been charged. The investigation is continuing, officials said.