Emergency Workers' Quick Response Credited with Keeping Woman Alive

Two deputies, a Pomona Police officer and a firefighter are being credited with helping to keep an elderly woman, who was badly injured in a multi-vehicle crash, alive so that she could be treated at a hospital.

The crash happened about 11:15 a.m. on Highway 71 at Phillips Drive. Pomona Police suspect the unnamed woman had some kind of medical emergency and rolled through a stop sign into traffic.

Four other vehicles then collided with each other, Pomona Police officials said. Two of the vehicles, including the one driven by the elder woman, were forced over an embankment.

Shortly after, Deputies Francisco Rodarte and Jaime Huerta, with Inmate Transportation, happened upon the crash, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff’s officials.

The deputies stopped to help and found the cars over the embankment. The two climbed down and found the 79-year old female seatbelted in her mangled car, officials said.

“They could see that she was seriously injured as they opened her car door,” according to Deputy Mark Pope. “They checked her vital signs and determined that she was not breathing. With the help of a Pomona Police Officer and a Los Angeles County Firefighter, they immediately pulled her from the car and carried her up the freeway embankment.”

She was treated by paramedics and stabilized for transport to the hospital, sheriff’s officials said.

The woman’s condition was not immediately known. It was also not known how many others were injured, Pomona Police officials said Monday afternoon.

The crash forced authorities to close a two-mile stretch of the northbound Highway 71 between Mission Boulevard and Rio Rancho Road for about four hours. Traffic was backed up to the 60 Freeway, according to the CHP and witnesses.