The Cupertino Courier News Briefs Unusual I-280 crash hurts driver A Santa Clara woman was rushed to Valley Medical Center after sustaining head injuries during a solo car accident on an I-280 off-ramp last Tuesday. She was released from the hospital on Dec. 6, according to nurses. At about 11:30 a.m. Dec. 1, Zoya Moghaddas veered off the Wolfe Road exit. As her car careened through the bushes, a tree branch punctured the windshield of her Ford Explorer, hitting Moghaddas in the head. A news photographer at the scene said the branch went into her eye, but nurses said they couldn't give specific injury information. According to the California Highway Patrol, Moghaddas was drifting in and out of consciousness after the crash, but managed to make an emergency call on her cellular phone to be rescued. The CHP had trouble finding the car because Moghaddas, confused from the accident, did not know the name of the exit, a CHP officer said. CHP officers, he said, found her after they instructed her to honk her horn and set off her car alarm. After officers located the correct offramp, their search was further delayed because Moghaddas' car was deeply entrenched in the thick bushes, according to Dave Hughes, a Caltrans worker who was on the scene of the accident. Moghaddas had to wait for 45 minutes before the CHP reached her, according to a CHP report. Then, she was so deep in the brush that workers had to use chainsaws to clear debris out of the way to get to her. Moghaddas suffered severe head injury and was bleeding profusely when she was taken to Valley Medical Center in San Jose. Holiday weekend yields more burglaries Over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, Cupertino residents fell victim to five more burglaries--the latest in what sheriff's investigators believe is a string of related break-ins in the West Valley area. The weekend burglaries occurred all over Cupertino, including two on Erin Way, one on Myrtlewood Avenue and Pumpkin Drive and another on Fiesta Lane. Investigators think they were carried out by the same burglars who have broken into and ransacked about 40 homes in Cupertino and another 30 in Sunnyvale since last March. Santa Clara County Sheriff Sgt. Mike Flood said in one of the break-ins, burglars were unsuccessful because the family had recently put their valuables in a bank safe-deposit box. Investigators still theorize that a group of prowlers could be at work because they strike when people leave their homes for any length of time, usually on weekend evenings. "They're just plugging away," Flood said. "We're not getting any leads, no witnesses, nothing. We're kicking around how we're going to tackle this thing." The burglaries have prompted the formation of a task force with Sunnyvale and San Jose Police to pool resources and ideas on ways to catch the perpetrators. "I'm pulling my hair out over this," Flood said. "We're going to come up with something." Flood said he couldn't specify how he plans on catching the crooks. [ Back to Contents Page | Cupertino Courier Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Cupertino Courier, December 9, 1998. ©1998 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.