6 Killed, 5 Hurt in 2-Car Crash in High Desert

Six people died Saturday and five were injured when a station wagon abruptly veered across a gravelly desert highway divider and slammed head-on into another car on State Highway 18 in Apple Valley.

One of the victims was a mother of eight who had moved from Watts to the High Desert after marrying.

The crash occurred about 1:30 p.m., but emergency crews worked into the late evening trying to clear the wreckage, identify victims and sort out what happened.

“This was just a horrible accident,” San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Sgt. Roff Tarangle said at the scene Saturday evening. “We’re still trying to sort out who is who.”

Authorities did not release the names of the dead or injured. But Joseph Jackson, standing grimly with his church pastor, said his daughter, Lisa Washington, 42, was among the dead.

“She worked very hard at being a good mother. She was a very loving mother,” said Jackson, who moved to the High Desert to be with his daughter.

He gazed at the grisly scene and said the only way he could cope was by “believing in the Lord.”

“Any time there is this type of sorrow, you have to have something to hang on to,” Jackson said.

Four of the dead, including Washington, were among eight adults who were riding in a Ford Escort station wagon. It was traveling east in a rocky, hilly stretch of countryside when it shot across the divider strip of the four-lane highway and struck a Ford Thunderbird in which three people were riding, witnesses told authorities.

Two men in the Thunderbird, ages 23 and 33, died, and the driver was injured, authorities said. All four fatalities in the station wagon were women; three were thrown from the car.

Those in the station wagon were believed to have lived in nearby cities, and those in the Thunderbird appeared to be from Victorville in San Bernardino County.

The cars, each thought to have been traveling between 50 and 60 mph, rolled over several times before stopping. Rescuers had to cut the roofs and doors off both vehicles to reach those trapped inside.

Some of the victims’ friends and relatives wandered the scene in grief and disbelief, trying to help emergency workers with identifications. Some walked into the desert to grieve in private.

The injured were taken to three Apple Valley area hospitals. Two, both men, were treated at St. Mary Regional Medical Center in Apple Valley and released. Another victim was taken to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton. Two others were believed to have been airlifted to Loma Linda University Medical Center, but the hospital declined to release any information.