Head-On Crash Leaves 2 Dead and 1 Injured

A 61-year-old Santa Paula man and his adult daughter were killed Tuesday morning when their compact car collided with an oncoming passenger van.

The crash occurred at 10:30 a.m. at the intersection of Telegraph and Beckwith roads in Santa Paula.

Alex Rivera Galvan, who was driving a Ford Escort, was taken to Santa Paula Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead 45 minutes later. Carmen Marie Galvan-Herrera, 41, was airlifted to Ventura County Medical Center, where she died 20 minutes later.

Ilene Holder, 21, who was driving a Ford Aerostar van, was airlifted to St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, where she was treated for a broken leg. She was in stable condition Tuesday evening.

Galvan was heading west on Telegraph and Holder was eastbound when their vehicles collided in the intersection, police said. The cause of the accident is still under investigation, said Santa Paula Police Chief Bob Gonzales. It is unknown whether drugs or alcohol were involved or whether either driver was speeding.

Police closed the intersection after the crash, but it was open to residents by early evening. Traffic was slowed for more than six hours.

“We are taking it really bad,” said Patricia Medrano, another daughter of Alex Galvan. “It’s something of a shock to all of us, and we are still trying to cope.”

Medrano said her father was a lifelong Ventura County resident who volunteered for the fire department and belonged to the Knights of Columbus. He had retired from a local water company and spent his free time with his 14 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Galvan-Herrera spent the past four years working as a food concessionaire at Seaside Park in Ventura, Medrano said. She is survived by her husband, Ray, and three children, ages 23, 15 and 11.

This was the first traffic fatality in Santa Paula this year. “An accident of this type is not a common occurrence,” Gonzales said.

But on nearby California 126, on a stretch once called “blood alley,” car crashes are more frequent.

On Christmas Eve, two brothers died after their pickup truck was hit from behind and forced into oncoming traffic. Last May, a 34-year-old man was killed on California 126 east of Fillmore after swerving across the center median and crashing into a pickup.

Anyone with information about Tuesday’s collision is asked to call Santa Paula police at 525-4474.

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Times staff writer Holly J. Wolcott contributed to this story.