Four killed after truck crashes into Aqueduct

InsideVC.com (February 20, 2003)

A pickup truck swerved from a highway and plunged into the California Aqueduct on Wednesday, killing three children and one woman despite the frantic efforts of a firefighter and off-duty paramedic who pulled them from the murky, bone-chilling water.   A fifth victim, a 14-year-old child, was unconscious and on life support at Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles as doctors conducted brain activity tests.

The dead children included a 1-year-old boy, a 3-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy, said Dr. Calvin Lowe, a trauma physician at the hospital. The 30-year-old woman died at Antelope Valley Hospital, doctors there said. Neither the names of the victims nor their relationship were immediately released.  KNBC-TV reported that the woman and the three youngsters who died were mother and children. The 14-year-old was the children's cousin, according to the station, which interviewed the victims' anguished husband and father, Raoul Morales.

"I'm finished, I think.  I don't know exactly what's going to happen to me," said Morales, adding his first instinct was to return to his native El Salvador. "I'm going back to my country," he said. "I'm never coming back to this country, no more, no more."

The crash occurred on Highway 138, about 70 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles in the Mojave Desert. The victims were probably submerged for 20 or 30 minutes before rescue workers arrived, authorities said.

Investigators were unsure why the truck careened off the highway and crashed through a wire fence before plunging into 15 feet of cold, murky water just before 7 a.m.

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