The Ventura City Fire Department frequently sends us photos from the incidents they handle, and while we don't generally publish those in the paper, they can be very interesting.

I received three photos today about an incident involving a child who had to be extricated from a vehicle after his father crashed into a parked semi truck. (Police believe he was driving drunk: http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/dec/31/dui-suspected-in-crash/)

I am including all three below.

Take a look:

 

Even though I'm a writer by trade, I'll admit that this picture is worth a bucket of words.



The good news is that the people in this car are OK. The CHP reported that the 58-year-old driver and the 8-year-old girl in her car suffered only abrasions and complaints of pain. In a prepared statement, CHP officials said their seatbelts "undoubtedly" saved their lives.

Here's the press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SANTA BARBARA AREA CHP

THREE VEHICLE COLLISION RUNS ONE OF THE VEHICLES OFF THE ROAD AND OVER A CLIFF.

On Wednesday, October 29, 2008, at approx. 0730 hrs, CHP, fire and ambulance personnel received a call of a three vehicle collision, southbound US-101, north of Evans ave.
Responding units arrived on scene to find three vehicles involved with one approximately 100 feet over the edge of a cliff on the west side of the roadway.
Patrick Joerger, 23, of Ventura was driving his 2005 Chevy Express van, southbound US-101, north of Evans Ave. in the left hand #1 lane, at approx. 60-65 mph. A Toyota Highlander (Unk. Year), driven by Etelina Figueroa, 58, of Carpinteria, was southbound US-101, in the left hand #1 lane directly in front of Mr. Joerger's van. A 2002 GMC Sierra, towing a woodchipper, driven by Nicolas Pinedo, 47, of Ventura, was southbound US-101, in the right hand #2 lane, directly next to Mr. Joerger and Ms. Figueroa.
Mr. Joerger's van struck the rear of the Highlander, sending the Highlander out of control. The Highlander crossed the #2 lane and the right shoulder before plummeting over a large cliff, coming to rest on its roof near the railroad tracks. This impact caused Mr. Joerger to lose control of his van and it also crossed into the #2 lane and struck Mr. Pinedo's GMC Sierra. Both vehicles came to rest on the right shoulder of southbound US-101.
Ms. Figueroa and her 8 year-old female passenger were transported to Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital with complaints of pain and abrasions, with Ms. Figueroa being admitted for observation. Both were wearing seatbelts which undoubtedly saved their lives. Mr. Pinedo was also transported to Cottage hospital with complaints of pain, treated and released. Mr. Joerger also sustained minor injuries.
Alcohol/drugs were not a factor in this collision. 

One of the challenges of breaking news is that both readers and news organizations want to see information on the web right after it happens, which is that's exactly when everyone is trying to figure out what occured.

When the news is big, the first step is sometimes easier, because it doesn't take much deliberation.

If a plane crashes or someone is killed, for example, I know I'm usually going to put whatever information I can immediately confirm up on the web and head to the scene.

But the calculation is often more complicated.

For example:

I heard about 7:30 this morning that police and firefighters were called to a "vehicle versus pedestrian" accident near Ramona Elementary School in Oxnard, I made calls to the fire and police departments.

I was able to confirm that at two minors had been hit and taken to a hospital, but it wasn't immediately clear how seriously they were hurt.

So here are some of my considerations:

Do I put the confirmed information immediately up on the web, and leave readers wondering if the injuries are bumps and bruises or life-threatening wounds?

Do I wait for more information, and risk missing witnesses at the scene if it was serious?

Do I head to the scene, risking a lot of wasted time if the crash turns out to be nothing?

Since I hear about vehicle versus pedestrian crashes just about every day, and they are usually nothing, I decided to wait.

In doing so, I had another conundrum to deal with:

My contacts at the Oxnard Fire Department and Oxnard Police Department kindly offered to call me back and send out a press release respectively when they knew more, but as each additional minute ticked by, I knew that if the accident was serious, my chances of getting to the scene early were diminishing.

On the other hand, if I called my contacts every five minutes every time a pedestrian was hit by a car, that would be pretty inefficient. (And they wouldn't be very happy with me, since they of course have other jobs to do.)

After picking time intervals to check back with them, I learned about 8:15 that one girl had only a minor injury.

I breathed a sigh of relief, and put a short brief on the web.

About 15 minutes later, we got a press release with more information, and I updated the brief on the Internet.

Stay tuned here at The Backstory for more breathtakingly exciting episodes from the breaking news cycle.

And, more importantly, be safe out there.

It was several hours after the accident, and medical examiners had already taken away the victim's body, but some gruesome evidence remained.

Behind the spot where the pedestrian came to rest after a driver hit him, his hat, a pair of headphones and one of his shoes sat on the roadway.

It was Sept. 3, and a few hours earlier, Eulogio Garcia Sanchez, 53, of Oxnard had been wearing them as he crossed the C Street at Elm Street in the pre-dawn dark, heading for a bus to go have coffee with friends.

When I zoomed in with my video camera, I could see the black hat had the word "cobra" written on it, and the black tennis shoe still had its laces tied. There was nothing gruesome about the items on their own, but there on the pavement, they were stark reminders of what cars can do to a human body.

Sanchez was by no means the first pedestrian knocked literally out of his shoes when a car hit him.

I can recall several recent accidents in Ventura County in which the same thing happened.

When Karey Marsh, 46, of Thousand Oaks,  was hit by an allegedly drunken driver while she was jogging near the edge of Oak Park last month, the impact threw her an estimated 30 feet into nearby shrubs but left her shoes behind, authorities said. In fact, emergency responders only knew a pedestrian had been hit because of those shoes.

And when an intoxicated driver slammed into an SUV on the side of the road and Officer Tony Pedeferri of the California Highway Patrol in December 2007, the impact launched Pedeferri 20 yards and threw him out of his boots. (The crash killed the driver of the SUV, who Pedeferri had pulled over.)

I first heard of someone being knocked out of his shoes when I was reporting on the crash that injured Officer Pedeferri.

When I first heard the detail, I thought to myself: I didn't know that could happen.

It seemed improbable, physically possible -- of course, objects at rest are inclined to stay at rest and all -- but incredible. Imagine the force necessary to throw a person so hard that a garment fastened to his or her body is pulled off by the impact alone.

It's something I would need a much better understanding physics than I have to really comprehend.

I asked a police contact and another from the medical examiner's office: Is this common? Neither common nor uncommon, they told me. It depends on a lot of things, but it does happen.

Most of us drive every day, some of us for hours, but how often do we consider that our cars are metal boxes weighing thousands of pounds, hurtling down the street at speeds that are mind boggling, especially when you compare it to the pedestrians, cyclists and others with whom we share the road.

Stay safe out there.

Here are links to some of of our articles and videos that relate to this topic:

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/sep/04/pedestrian-crossing-street-is-hit-and-killed/

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/aug/27/to-jogger-struck-by-vehicle-killed/

http://gallery.venturacountystar.com/video.cfm?VideoID=556

http://gallery.venturacountystar.com/video.cfm?VideoID=188

http://gallery.venturacountystar.com/video.cfm?VideoID=563

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2007/dec/21/chp-officer-remains-in-critical-condition/

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/jul/03/injured-chp-officer-home-after-6-months-of/

The tragic death of Karey Marsh on Tuesday brings up a topic that is very old news, but which unfortunately still appears frequently on the pages of our paper:

Fatal accidents linked to drunken driving.

Marsh, 46, was jogging in the bike lane of Lindero Canyon Road on the border between Thousand Oaks and Oak Park early Tuesday morning when a car hit and killed her.

The driver, Nicholas Lagrotta, was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol and vehicular manslaughter, police said.

There's nothing new about links between preventable death and drunken driving. But despite all the programs and public relations campaigns, people still kill themselves and others at an alarming rate when they get hammered and get behind the wheel.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration:

"In 2006, 13,470 people were killed in alcohol-impaired-driving crashes. These
alcohol-impaired-driving fatalities accounted for 32 percent of the total motor
vehicle traffic fatalities in the United States."

A quick skim of our local headlines makes it clear Ventura County is not exempt.

In the past year alone, we've reported about numerous people who died as a result of inebriated driving.

Take a look at some of our recent stories:

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/aug/26/no-headline---nxxfcfatal27/

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/jul/03/injured-chp-officer-home-after-6-months-of/

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/apr/14/man-killed-vehicle-wreck-identified/

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/apr/02/forensic-experts-say-drugs-found-in-drivers/

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2007/aug/28/teenager-is-killed-two-are-injured-in-car-crash/

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/jan/14/oscar-winning-screenwriter-arrested-in-fatal-in/

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/apr/11/accident-victim-in-critical-condition/

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/may/15/teen-killed-in-crash-had-been-drinking/

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/jul/21/boy-dies-car-crash-driver-held/

Early this morning, an apparently disoriented 88-year-old Huntington Beach man headed out for a Taco Bell and ended up crashing into a light standard in Oxnard, roughly 90 miles away, police said.  The man did not appear to be hurt.

Accidents involving disoriented elderly drivers are fairly common, and discussions about traffic safety and seniors behind the wheel are happening worldwide.

Here are some examples of recent stories involving accidents and elderly drivers, and the debate around the issue:

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2007/dec/16/behind-the-wheel-exams-sought-for-drivers-65-and/

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/may/14/2-families-displaced-when-car-plows-into-public/

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-05-02-older-drivers-usat1a_N.htm

http://www.aarp.org/family/articles/older_drivers_and_auto_safety.html

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/traffic/bal-md.drive30jun30,0,2891702.story

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=c98c551e-16b3-4977-976a-0a056c818fdb

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/16836935/detail.html

http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/display/article/10168/52206