California

Search for Hit-and-Run Driver Continues After 4 Killed in Crash

A suspected hit-and-run driver remains at large Sunday, following a collision on the 60 Freeway in Pomona that killed four people and injured four others.

Authorities are searching for the driver of a new model white vehicle that collided with a Ford Explorer containing eight passengers at about 5 a.m. Saturday, according to authorities.

Passengers in the Explorer who suffered fatal injuries were identified as Lake Elsinore residents Elba Rosales, 26; Luis Herrera, 29; Noemi Herrera, 21 and Gerardo Herrera, 49, according to investigator Rudy Molano of the coroner's office.

Elena Chavez-Lopez, the 25-year-old Lake Elsinore resident who drove the 2003 Explorer, told authorities that a white newer-model vehicle struck the left side of her vehicle while it was going eastbound on the 60 Freeway, west of Reservoir Street, the California Highway Patrol reported.

Chavez-Lopez, who suffered major injuries, immediately lost control of the SUV, as it veered sharply to the right. The SUV then overturned in the No. 4 lane of the freeway and on the right shoulder area, the CHP reported.

"The vehicle continued to overturn multiple times down a dirt embankment, across the Reservoir Street off-ramp, down a second dirt embankment and finally came to rest against the chain-link perimeter fence," the CHP reported.

Six of the eight occupants in the SUV were ejected onto the dirt embankment and near the Reservoir Avenue off-ramp. Four were pronounced dead at the scene and the four other occupants suffered moderate to major injuries.

Paramedics rushed three victims to Arrowhead Regional Hospital in Colton and another to UC Irvine Medical Center.

"It is suspected that six of the eight occupants were not wearing seat belts,'' the CHP reported. "Of those six occupants, three of them sustained the fatal injuries.''

The CHP's Baldwin Park office asked anyone who saw the crash to call them at (626) 338-1164.

A GoFundMe was started to help the family.

Copyright CNS - City News Service
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