At 12:41 a.m. Wednesday, a northbound car on Pacific Coast Highway struck a utility pole near the entrance to Palisades Bowl in Pacific Palisades. One of the seven occupants, a 30-year-old male, was killed instantly. The 27-year-old female driver, an 18-year-old female and a 1-year-old were critically injured. Three females, ages 5 to 13, suffered minor injuries. PCH was closed in both directions during the subsequent investigation, reopening shortly after 8 a.m. LAPD Officer Ross, a reconstructionist at the scene, said that it was too early to determine the cause of the accident. According to one Bowl resident, who was walking along PCH to reach Temescal Canyon Road, where she was going to meet a driver and catch a ride to work, ‘I heard the boom; it was a ‘hit’ and then an explosion.’ Another resident told the Palisadian-Post, ‘I heard a huge bang. I grabbed my ‘coyote’ stick and came out to see what had happened. Several tenants had fire extinguishers and were trying to put out the [car] fire. I could hear sirens and then the professionals arrived.’ Sari Ehrenreich wrote in an e-mail, ‘I held an infant from the crash for over an hour while the firemen and paramedics did their work. My greatest interest in telling this story is for you to help me get the story to the local Spanish newspaper not piling into a small car with seven human beings because of the tragedy that can strike.’
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