Two San Jose women died in separate wrecks this Labor Day
holiday weekend on U.S. Highway 101 near San Martin.
Two San Jose women died in separate wrecks this Labor Day holiday weekend on U.S. Highway 101 near San Martin.
Rosalia Carillo, 45, died at 3:35am Monday from a head-on collision with a driver going the wrong way on northbound 101, according to county coroner’s officials. Of the eight people in the two cars, the only one who didn’t sustain life-threatening injuries was Graciela Plascencia, 30, of Gilroy, who was arrested on suspicion of gross vehicular manslaughter and driving under the influence of alcohol causing death. The collision took place south of the San Martin Avenue exit.
At 6:25am Saturday, Shonda Pritchard, 31, died from a rollover crash while driving her 8-year-old son to a Pop Warner football game in Gilroy.
CHP officers reported Pritchard was driving “at a high rate of speed” and made an unsafe turning movement, losing control of her 1998 Chevrolet Tahoe near the CHP weigh station and the Masten Avenue exit. Her son received a broken hip and was flown by helicopter to San Jose Medical Center. Both women were pronounced dead at the scenes of the accidents. More people die as a result of drunk driving on Labor Day weekend than during any other holiday period in California, according to CHP statistics.
Wrong-way driver
Plascencia was driving home from a night of drinking in San Jose, according to the CHP. She had two passengers with her. Both were critically injured from the wreck, as were four people in the other car.
Plascencia told a CHP officer she didn’t remember exactly how she got on northbound 101 heading south.
“She said she thought she blacked out or passed out or slept or something,” CHP spokeswoman Terry Mayes said.
Where Plascencia entered the freeway is also in question. She reportedly told an officer she thought she got on at Bernal Road in south San Jose, about 12 miles north of the collision site. Mayes found this unlikely, saying traffic was steady at the time and that the CHP would almost certainly gotten a call about a wrong-way driver.
Plascencia was going about 65 mph at the time of the wreck. Meanwhile, a large Spanish-speaking family was traveling the correct way in two vehicles.
The driver of the first vehicle saw Plascencia’s car coming, swerved and avoided it, but the second driver – 22-year-old Sergio Lua of East Palo Alto – wasn’t able to get out of the way. Carillo was a rear-seat passenger in the car Lua was driving and died from hitting her head on the post between the car’s front and back doors, Mayes said.
Both Plascencia and Lua were driving Nissan Altima sedans. Plascencia’s was a 1999 model; Lua’s was a 1993.
All four survivors from the car Lua was driving were in critical condition Monday afternoon at three different South Bay hospitals, according to the CHP:
Driver Sergio Lua, 22, of East Palo Alto, had two broken femurs and a collapsed lung and is under sedation at San Jose Medical Center.
Alicia Carillo, 19, underwent at least seven hours of surgery for a ruptured spleen and liver at San Jose Medical Center.
A 17-year-old male is at Stanford Hospital with a ruptured kidney, liver and spleen.
A 16-year-old female is at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center with a broken arm and facial and leg injuries.
The two passengers in the car Plascencia was driving were also severely injured, according to the CHP:
Veronica Prado, 28, of Gilroy, suffered a broken pelvis and femur and trauma to her head and elbow.
Mary Yvonne Gayton, 32, of Gilroy, suffered a broken back, ruptured spleen and an abdominal tear.
Plascencia had cuts to her face and shin and pain in her pelvis.
All three are at Valley Medical Center – Plascencia in the jail ward. After CHP officers had secured the scene, a third driver failed to stop for emergency vehicles and crashed into Plascencia’s car, according to CHP officers. Xochito Calderon, 30, slowed her 2003 Ford Expedition to about 50 mph after seeing a fire engine pass by but did not see the wrecked car and hit it. She was taken to San Jose Medical Center for a possible spinal injury.
All eight people involved were wearing seat belts, according to the CHP.
Mom dead, son hurt
In the Saturday morning accident, Pritchard’s SUV veered off the side of the highway, then hit an oleander bush and two posts. It came to rest on its roof in the grassy median that separates 101 from the CHP’s truck scales. No alcohol was involved, and both mother and son were wearing seat belts, the CHP said.
Gilroy Pop Warner President Rich Salazar said he didn’t think the boy played for Gilroy. The Gilroy Browns’ Mighty Mite team – the age group the 8-year-old would have played in – played the Oak Grove Central Raptors at 8am Saturday, Salazar said. Oak Grove Youth Football officials could not be reached for comment as of press time.
