Firefighters labored 40 minutes extracting an injured Gilroy
woman from her crumpled Dodge minivan, which was mangled in a
head-on crash Wednesday morning near the intersection of Bloomfield
Avenue and Frazier Lake Roads southeast of Gilroy.
Gilroy – Firefighters labored 40 minutes extracting an injured Gilroy woman from her crumpled Dodge minivan, which was mangled in a head-on crash Wednesday morning near the intersection of Bloomfield Avenue and Frazier Lake Roads southeast of Gilroy.
Christine Vatuone, 42, was driving alone northbound on Frazier Lake Road just after 8:30am Wednesday when a southbound white Cadillac Escalade driven by 40-year-old Jill Weathers of Hollister crossed into her lane and collided with her just south of Bloomfield Avenue. Both vehicles spun after colliding, sending the Dodge minivan backward into a ditch.
The crash left Vatuone trapped inside her minivan, surrounded by crushed metal. Firefighters cut away both front doors, removed the shattered windshield and peeled back the van’s roof to free her. Paramedics from AMR, CalSTAR and the Gilroy Fire Department braced her left leg, broken during the crash, and bandaged cuts along her face, chest and arms before strapping her to a gurney and loading her into an air ambulance bound for Regional Medical Center in San Jose. Vatuone’s condition was unavailable as of press time Wednesday.
“They did an awesome job,” said California Highway Patrol Sgt. Dave Hill, watching firefighters and paramedics at work on the patient, finally freed from her car. “They sent the army out, and that’s what we needed today.”
Weathers, the sole occupant of the Escalade, suffered only minor cuts to her face and complained of neck and back pain, but refused medical treatment, instead taking a ride to Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula from her husband, who arrived shortly after the crash, Hill said.
The CHP is still investigating why Weathers crossed into the northbound lane. A press release specified that alcohol and drugs weren’t a factor in the crash.
Frazier Lake Road was closed for 90 minutes while emergency workers freed the woman, then towed the vehicles and cleaned the crash site.
