By KATHERINE PETERSEN
A woman was killed and five others injured in a car accident at the intersection of Lawrence Expressway and Sandia Avenue in Sunnyvale June 11.
Qing-Ya Tan, 22, on a lunch break from her Sunnyvale office, was killed after being thrown from the back seat of a car that was struck at the intersection.
Los Altos resident Diana Shaw, 53, was driving southbound on Lawrence with four colleagues from MicroLithography, Inc. for lunch, said Sunnyvale Public Safety officer Paul Parsons. Shaw told police she steered her Nissan Infinity into the left lane to turn onto Sandia as she approached the intersection and a green light.
Shaw slowed down and made a turn across northbound Lawrence traffic lanes, but according to witnesses' accounts, Shaw did not have a green light for the left turn.
San Jose resident Lisa Melchor, 25, who was driving north on Lawrence in a Buick Regal, tried to brake but to no avail, Parsons said. The Regal hit Shaw's Infinity between the front and back doors on the passenger side of the car, causing the Infinity to collapse on the passenger side.
"The impact put so much stress on the back window that it exploded out of the car. The car began a clockwise rotation across the intersection, throwing two of the back-seat passengers, who were not belted in, out of the back," Parsons said.
He said the two people flew through the air, landed on the asphalt and bounced up against the bumper of a car on Sandia Avenue before hitting the ground again.
Tan, 22, of San Jose, lost her life when she was thrown from the car. San Jose resident Chu Nguyen, 31, sustained severe fractures extending from one side of her face to the other, police said.
Cupertino resident Yu-Lien Lin, 36, who sat in the back seat on the passenger side, suffered a crushed pelvis, chest and head injuries from the car's collapse. She remains in a coma at Valley Medical Center.
Milpitas resident Wong Hoo Cheung, 46, the front-seat passenger, suffered facial injuries and a broken rib and the driver, Shaw, suffered cuts and bruises but went into shock at the scene, Parsons said.
After the impact, the Buick spun 180 degrees and Melchor, its driver, suffered a dislocated ankle from the tension of her foot on the brake.
The five injured victims were taken to three hospitals following the crash. Two were taken by ambulance to Stanford University Medical Center, one to Columbia San Jose Medical Center and two to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center.
Parsons said the case is still in the investigative stages and will be sent on to the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office. He said it appears that Shaw may be at fault for turning left on a red light.
Sunnyvale averages five to six fatal car accidents a year, although last year 11 occurred in the city, Parson said. "We're already standing at seven this year," he added.
Karen O'Brien, Public Safety spokeswoman, said four fire engines responded to the scene. Firefighters had to use the Jaws of Life to extract one person from a badly damaged car.
Parsons said the northbound lanes of the Lawrence Expressway and the offramps from U.S. Highway 101 to northbound Lawrence Expressway were closed for a couple of hours while police investigated the crash.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, June 19, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.