NEWS: Commuter Van Rolls Down Hill, Four Dead, page 1

Tragedy struck in Los Angeles today as four people died after a tragic car accident. A commuter van holding ten passengers, two of whom were NASA employees, suddenly lost control and cascaded down the side of a dense mountain. Eyewitness reports saw the crash happen. Four people died instantly, one being ejected from the vehicle, upon crashing. Police described the scene as "one of the most gruesome" they had ever seen.

abclocal.go.com
Notified by a driver who saw the crash, two California Highway Patrol officers at a nearby movie shoot scrambled down to the vehicle and called for rescue workers who ripped the van apart to get to the injured passengers.

One person was hurled from the van and died at the scene. Two others died inside the van, where other victims were left hanging from windows or trapped under a collapsed roof for as long as an hour, authorities said.

"It's one of the most gruesome scenes I've ever seen," said Mike Leum, chief of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department search and rescue team. "There was every type of trauma you would expect to see in this situation: compound fractures, evisceration, multiple head trauma. There was a complete collapse of the roof onto the passenger area."

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I can't believe this happened, still no known cause of accident. The road was wet, although it was NOT raining; and no skid marks were found, so how exactly did this tragedy happen? Two of the passengers were from NASA's JPL control center. This center controls many projects, including the Mars' Rovers project.

[edit on 8-12-2004 by Banshee]