2 Children Killed, Women Hurt in Crash

Two young children from Oxnard died Tuesday morning in a head-on collision, their pregnant mother pulled from the flaming wreckage by other motorists and two other women were seriously injured in the accident just outside Ventura.

The accident took place about 8:30 a.m. on a curving stretch of Victoria Avenue immediately south of a bridge over the Santa Clara River.

The children were identified as 7-month-old Jacqueline Lopez and her brother, David Lopez, who would have been 3 years old next month.

Their mother, Francine Lopez, 21, was taken to St. John’s Regional Medical Center, where she was being treated for burns, abrasions, and leg and back pains.

The driver of the other car, Naomi Torres, 35, of Canoga Park, was listed in critical condition at Ventura County Medical Center with a fractured left arm and collapsed lungs. Her passenger, Donna Brose, 37, of West Hills, was in stable condition at the same hospital with fractured ribs and other injuries.

A number of passersby pitched in to help when they saw people trapped in both mangled vehicles. On his way to pick up his three children from a sleepover at their grandmother’s house in Port Hueneme, Eric Lyke saw flames shoot out of Lopez’s car, and with several other men ran over to yank open the doors.

“I couldn’t believe what was going on,” he said.

“The mom was screaming and flames were engulfing the inside of the car. It looked like she was burned real bad, with the backs of her legs all black and blistered.”

With fire licking up through the floorboards, Frank Huerta, a former Port Hueneme reserve police officer, asked for a knife, and someone produced one instantly.

Huerta cut the seat belt pinning little David in a crack between the crumpled front and rear seats. Then he slashed at Francine Lopez’s belt. With others, he pulled her and she tumbled out of the front seat before the entire car erupted in flames.

“That knife was like an act of God,” he said. “It was there for a reason.”

As someone fought the blaze with a fire extinguisher, a cluster of men toiled over David. A former scoutmaster, Lyke pumped on the boy’s chest while Huerta and another man traded off on mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Lyke said they worked frantically for what seemed like 30 minutes before the boy was placed on a gurney and taken by helicopter to Community Memorial Hospital.

David was pronounced dead a short time later.

The cause of the accident is under investigation, said California Highway Patrol Officer Steve Reid.

Traveling north on Victoria, Lopez, who is pregnant, lost control of her 1998 Chevrolet Prizm for unknown reasons, Reid said. Swerving over the center divider, she collided with Torres’ 1994 Honda Civic, he said.

The crash shook up those who assisted at the scene.

Lyke, the owner of a door-and-window company in Ventura, choked up when told of David’s death.

He recalled using his body to shield the boy from the heat of the blaze as he pumped on his chest.

“You’ve just got to do it,” he said. “It’s about us being human beings and caring for each other.”

Rodney Smith, a battalion chief from the Ventura Fire Department, said that the good Samaritans, who included an out-of-town firefighter, may have saved Francine Lopez’s life. Without them, she “probably would have perished in the fire,” he said.

“Everyone there did a very good job.”