LOWER LAKE, Calif. – A Saturday evening head-on crash south of Lower Lake claimed three lives and sent three other people to area hospitals.
The collision between a late model SUV and an older model passenger car was reported at 8 p.m. on Highway 29 between Spruce Grove Road and C Street, according to the California Highway Patrol.
CHP, Lake County Fire, South Lake County Fire, Northshore Fire and the Lake County Sheriff’s Office were among the responding agencies, according to radio reports.
Reports from the scene indicated that CHP officers and firefighters arriving at the crash site found the car pushed up a nearby embankment and the SUV sitting in the middle of the roadway.
Three of the four people in the car had died by the time firefighters arrived, with the driver seriously injured, according to reports. The two people in the SUV also had been injured in the crash.
The car’s driver and the SUV’s occupants all reportedly had to be extricated from the badly damaged vehicles.
Radio reports indicated all three survivors were flown to out-of-county to trauma centers.
A landing zone was set up on Spruce Grove Road North. Two REACH air ambulances and one from CalStar landed there, transporting two of the victims to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital and the third to Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa. Radio reports indicated the last of the helicopters lifted off shortly before 9:30 p.m.
The highway remained blocked for nearly three and a half hours as rescue personnel worked at the scene, CHP officers investigated the cause and two companies removed the totaled vehicles, the CHP reported.
Incident command at the scene was terminated at 11:17 p.m., with the roadway reopened minutes later, according to radio traffic.
The CHP investigation continued into the night. A full report on the circumstances of the crash with the names of the deceased and injured had not yet been released by 4 a.m.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews, on Tumblr at www.lakeconews.tumblr.com, on Google+, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf and on YouTube at www.youtube.com/user/LakeCoNews .
