SAN MARTIN
– A 44-year-old Morgan Hill man died late Monday morning when a
dozing driver slammed full-speed into his stopped car on Monterey
Road.
SAN MARTIN – A 44-year-old Morgan Hill man died late Monday morning when a dozing driver slammed full-speed into his stopped car on Monterey Road.
A total of five cars were involved in the 11:20 a.m. wreck, and three drivers were injured. The deceased was identified as Francisco Mateo.
Mateo was waiting at the Masten Avenue red light on southbound Monterey when Ruben Galvan’s blue Ford Escort plowed into the back of his Geo Metro compact car, according to CHP officers.
Galvan, 42, of Morgan Hill, told emergency workers he fell asleep at the wheel, but he was rushed to the hospital before he could be formally interviewed. He had a broken sternum and lacerated liver, according to the CHP, and was flown by CALSTAR helicopter from Saint Louise Regional Hospital to San Jose Medical Center. He was sedated when a CHP officer visited him at the hospital later Monday. He was listed in serious condition this morning.
Mateo, the driver of the Metro, died quickly, if not instantly, despite wearing a seat belt and the deployment of two front-seat air bags. American Medical Response paramedics arrived at the scene quickly, since their base is a few blocks away at Masten and U.S. Highway 101, but Mateo was already dead when they and CHP officers arrived.
The Metro was last in a line of four cars at the stoplight. It absorbed most of the Escort’s velocity and was pushed into a Hyundai Elantra, which hit a Nissan Sentra, which in turn bumped a Honda Accord.
Accord driver Terry Provence, 50, of Morgan Hill, complained of neck pain and was taken by ambulance to Saint Louise, where she was treated and released.
Sentra driver Vanessa Yanez, 20, of Fremont, is three months pregnant, according to her boyfriend, who was at the scene but did not give his name. She complained of pain, and her aunt in Gilroy, whom she was driving to visit, drove her to Saint Louise, where she was treated and released.
“She was shaken up,” the boyfriend said.
The Elantra’s driver, David Doshack, 39, of Morgan Hill, decided to seek his own aid at a later time. He said he had aches and pains and a small cut on the back of his head, but nothing serious.
CHP officers reported that Galvan was traveling about 50 to 55 mph at the time of impact. The speed limit there is 50 mph.
“I was just sitting at the stoplight, and all of a sudden there was just a gigantic jolt to my car, and I was thrown forward and backward,” Provence said.
When she got out and looked around, what she saw was “just a mangled mess.” The Metro “didn’t even look like a car,” she said. “It looked like an accordion.”
