Police name Vasco Rd. victims

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Aug 17, 2006 | by Roman Gokhman, STAFF WRITER

It was just another day on Vasco Road for Rosa Osborn. The Oakley resident was on her way to work Monday at a Chabot-Las Positas Community College District business office in Pleasanton. She was on the same route she took every morning, and then the reverse in the evening.

"And then my worst nightmare happened," Osborn said Wednesday, less than a day after being released from the hospital with relatively minor injuries -- relatively, because four others were killed in the ensuing wreck and another woman was seriously hurt.

Wednesday, the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office released the names of the four Hayward victims. All four worked for San Jose's Wright One Construction company.

Sac-Manuel Lopez, 22, Francisco Salazar, 29, and brothers Juan Ixtos, 20, and Lorenzo Ixtos, 24, were killed on their way to a Brentwood job site when their Ford Tempo drifted into the oncoming lane and struck Osborn's Ford Expedition. Two of the dead men were married with young children.

About 7:40 a.m. Monday, Osborn was driving south on Vasco Road when the Ford Tempo drifted into her lane. The collision itself was a blur, Osborn said. She said she remembers it being head-on, not a T-bone described by the California Highway Patrol. Her airbags deployed around her.

Both vehicles spun 180 degrees to face opposite directions.

"The Tempo stopped in front of me -- I didn't see anybody moving inside," she said. "When I looked out the window, I saw another lady whohad crawled out of her vehicle. She stopped outside my vehicle and asked for help."

That woman was Oakley resident Ann Deyoe, presumed to have been following Osborn in a Ford Explorer. According to the CHP, Deyoe's Explorer sideswiped the Tempo, hit a curb and rolled several times. Deyoe suffered major injuries to her hand, authorities said. Her family asked John Muir Hospital officials to not disclose her condition.

"I had excruciating pain in my chest and she (Deyoe) was going into shock," Osborn said.

Osborn said by the time she could comprehend what was happening, others had stopped to help. Osborn offered blankets from her SUV to wrap up the injured Deyoe.

She said she was in too much pain to get out of her SUV, but that others forced her to get out after they saw leaking gasoline.

Osborn suffered a concussion and bleeding around her spinal cord and was bruised in the wreck.

She and her husband, Richard, who also commutes the dangerous road, say enough is enough. The two plan to join the fight to make Vasco Road safer.

"It was a stupid road to be built in the first place," Richard Osborn said about the current incarnation of Vasco, rebuilt in 1996. "You don't have to be drunk -- a flat tire can cause a head-on collision."

He said he wants to see at least two lanes in each direction and a barrier to prevent crashes like Monday's. The rumble strips installed a year ago are not enough, he said.

"Everybody talks a lot in the Legislature but I don't see any change," he said.

State Sen. Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch, revived and passed on a bill Wednesday that would double traffic fines along dangerous stretches of the notorious rural road. This bill was actually approved by legislators

a year ago, but was put on hold because of fears it would be vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Jeff Altman, whose wife was killed in a crash on Vasco Road in 2003, said the bill is a good idea, but only a concrete divider would make the road much safer.

Julie Bueren, deputy public works director for Contra Costa County, said that a barrier is just not realistic at the moment.

"It's a question of funding," she said. "We don't have the money to do that."

The project would be expensive because the road would have to be widened to include a barrier, Bueren said, adding that even if the money were there, it would take at least a year for a plan to work its way through the red tape.

"The road needs to be divided," Altman said. "There's money available. (Politicians) just need to go and get it."

He said more people need to get involved and push the government to build a barrier in the middle of the road. And for Monday's crash to have any good outcome, the public has to move quickly, Altman said.

"This raises attention, again," he said. "But I wonder how long it will last?"

HOW TO HELP: Wright One is starting a memorial fund for four of its employees killed in Monday's traffic accident. Checks can be made out to Wright One Memorial Fund and mailed to Bank of the West, 908 Blossom Hill Road, San Jose, CA 95123. Please include account No. 029014597.