Local News in Brief : Tire Blowout Blamed in Fatal Truck Crash
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A motorist was killed and another injured Thursday when a tractor-trailer truck blew a tire on the Golden State Freeway near Sylmar and hit a pickup truck.
The pickup’s driver was killed when his vehicle flipped and rolled 600 feet after the collision, the California Highway Patrol said.
The larger truck was pulling two flatbed trailers loaded with cotton. It also overturned in the 12:15 p.m. accident, spilling cotton across both the freeway’s southbound truck-bypass lanes, which were closed for five hours afterward. The accident occurred just south of the Antelope Valley Freeway interchange, said CHP Officer Monty Keifer.
The identity of the 26-year-old victim from Thousand Oaks was not released. Authorities said the driver of the tractor-trailer truck, Ruben Valverde of Bakersfield, suffered a broken wrist and was treated at Olive View Medical Center in Sylmar.
Keifer said the victim was attempting to pass the tractor-trailer truck, which was traveling about 50 m.p.h. As the pickup passed, one of the trailer rig’s tires blew out, he said. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene.
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