GILROY
– The South County area lost two young lives due to automobile
accidents: One a 6-year-old boy, the other a 23-year-old woman.
GILROY – The South County area lost two young lives due to automobile accidents: One a 6-year-old boy, the other a 23-year-old woman.
The county coroner’s office confirmed that Angel Valencia Bonilla-Perez, 6, and Claudia Servin, 23, died of head injuries caused by two separate crashes.
Bonilla-Perez died in a Thursday morning collision on northbound Interstate 680. He and his 3-year-old brother were passengers in a Chevrolet Astro minivan driven by their mother, according to California Highway Patrol spokesman Les Bishop.
After slowing for construction, traffic had just picked up when the minivan sideswiped a parked Caltrans truck on the roadside, Bishop said.
“(The mother) was at freeway speed,” Bishop said.
The collision ripped away the right side of the minivan, which rolled over, ejecting Bonilla-Perez.
His mother sustained minor injuries, and his brother was uninjured.
Servin died Thursday, five days after her April 3 accident. She was driving southbound on U.S. 101 near Masten Avenue when a tire on her 1989 Ford Bronco suddenly went flat and caused the vehicle to overturn several times, pinning her inside.
Servin was in cardiac arrest, according to the CHP, and rescue workers resuscitated her at the scene after cutting her out of the vehicle. They took her by ambulance to nearby Saint Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy, then by air ambulance to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose, where she died.
Also in the vehicle was Servin’s sister Maribell, in her 20s. She lost consciousness as a result of the crash and suffered a mouth injury and neck and back pain, according to the CHP. She also was flown to Valley Medical Center.
Both women were wearing seat belts, the CHP reported.
