Deer Is Blamed for Fatal Crash on Toll Road

A wayward deer is being blamed for an accident that killed an Anaheim woman this week on the Eastern toll road, which has been plagued by collisions between cars and wild animals since it opened last fall.

Catherine Silva, 46, died at dusk Tuesday when the car she was driving veered and overturned on the toll road about a mile south of the Riverside Freeway interchange. Her aunt, who was a passenger in the car, has reported that her niece swerved to miss a deer, according to the California Highway Patrol and Silva’s husband.

“The passenger did say the driver swerved to avoid a deer,” said Officer Joann O’Hair of the Highway Patrol, which is continuing to investigate.

At least 30 animals--including at least 12 deer--have been killed by traffic on the new 17-mile highway since it opened in October. In response, toll-road builders have allotted more than $700,000 to strengthen fences and add other safeguards to keep animals off the road.

No human deaths have been linked publicly to wildlife before Silva died Tuesday evening.

Silva and her aunt, Alice Urisca, 61, also of Anaheim, were driving north in a 1998 Mitsubishi Eclipse about 80 to 85 mph, officers said. The accident occurred at 8:25 p.m. about a mile north of the Windy Ridge toll plaza.

The car appeared to drift into the center divider, swerved to the right, slid across the northbound lanes and hit the right berm, overturning and ejecting Silva, according to the police report. Both women were wearing seat belts, but Silva appeared to have slipped out of her belt, the report states. Witnesses in nearby cars did not see a deer, O’Hair said.

Silva’s husband, Richard Silva, 50, said his wife and her aunt were returning from a visit to his wife’s younger brother in the Rancho Santa Margarita area, where they were to have dinner and see “Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace.”

He said that Urisca told him that his wife swerved to avoid a deer.

“Why aren’t there any fences up there? Her life and others could have been saved,” Silva said. “How fast it all happened.”

He added: “I loved her very much, and I’m saddened by her loss, and her being gone.”

Silva is survived by her husband and four sons, ages 16 to 27. Urisca remained hospitalized Thursday in stable condition at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Environmentalist Dan Silver, a toll road opponent, said: “This tragedy is utterly the predictable consequence of putting roads in the wrong place, and we grieve with these people.”

Much of the Eastern toll road cuts through wilderness canyons. Although 6-foot-high fences have been installed flanking large sections of the highway, several wildlife experts have said that high-jumping deer can easily scale such fences. They have urged the toll road’s builder, the Transportation Corridor Agencies, to install fences 10 feet tall or even higher to protect deer and drivers alike.

Environmentalists cited the wildlife deaths to lobby for a bill introduced by state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles) to ban new roads in state parks, such as the proposed Foothill South toll road that would cut through San Onofre State Beach. That bill stalled in a Senate committee Thursday but will get a second chance next week.

Concerns were first raised about the road when five deer and seven coyotes died in collisions with cars within three weeks of the highway’s opening, including two deer killed in the same area where Silva died this week. Some biologists began questioning the effectiveness of five wildlife crossings, or tunnels, intended to guide deer and other animals under the road.

Toll road builders in turn spent $250,000 to improve fences along the road, adding mesh to the upper portion of 6-foot fencing on both sides of the highway for 6.5 miles south of the Riverside Freeway.

After the wildlife death toll climbed, the toll road agency approved $490,000 more in improvements, such as more mesh fencing and barbed wire.

But after extensive study, the agency has ruled out replacing the 6-foot fencing in the Windy Ridge area with a taller fence, spokeswoman Lisa Telles said Thursday.

“There are signs that you’re passing through” a wildlife area, Telles said. “Whenever you’re driving on a road, you need to be aware that there are obstacles.”

Others believe higher fencing is essential.

“I think it should be 11-foot fences with a 3-foot barbed-wire overhang. That’s what they’ve found is successful in Florida,” said biologist Laura Cohen, director of a South County land conservancy.

Cohen said she wrote the transportation agency with that advice after the first animal deaths were reported last fall. The agency wrote back to say it was improving the existing 6-foot fence rather than adding to its height.

“[Deer] can go over 6 feet, easily,” Cohen said after learning Thursday that a deer may have caused a fatal accident. “It’s terrible that someone’s died.”

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Times staff writer Nancy Hill-Holtzman contributed to this report.