A man died in Malibu last Thursday when his vehicle went over the edge of Malibu Canyon Road, yards away from where another vehicle plunged into the canyon earlier this summer.
The driver of the vehicle — its only occupant — was identified by the Los Angeles County Department of Coroner as 35-year-old Oscar Alvarez, a La Cañada Flintridge man whose blue BMW went off the side of the road just after 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 27, and fell an estimated 500 feet. It was Alvarez’s birthday.
An emergency system in Alvarez’s car sent an automatic distress call to 911, which alerted the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station of the accident.
“We received a call … saying that they had a client that activated the emergency feature in their vehicle,” Lt. John Lecrivain described.
The BMW service, called “Intelligent Emergency Call,” sends out an alert once an airbag is deployed and staff relay the message to nearby first responders.
The response included Sheriff’s deputies, members of Malibu Search and Rescue (SAR) Team, California Highway Patrol (CHP) and LA Co Fire. Alvarez was pronounced dead on scene Thursday, and responders waited until daylight to retrieve the body.
“On Thursday, [responders] discovered the deceased,” a technician at the coroner’s office explained. “He was extricated the next day due to safety reasons.”
According to reports from Malibu SAR, the effort was grueling.
“This crash resulted in more than 12 hours of rescue/recovery efforts over a two-day period,” a report published online read.
The coroner’s office also stated an official cause of death is yet to be determined.
“An exam has been scheduled, but it has not been performed at this time,” the technician explained on Monday afternoon.
The car landed in the canyon nearby two other vehicles that have rested at the bottom of Malibu Canyon for years, according to SAR Captain David Katz. However, though the presence of other wreckage made it appear the stretch of road is especially dangerous, that is not necessarily the case.
“It could absolutely be a vehicle that was pushed off the canyon,” Katz said. “We get those. I’d say, roughly a third of our cars that go off the cliff are empty.”
The Los Angeles Department of Public Works is awaiting results of a CHP investigation before publishing a review of conditions of the roadway, according to Public Works spokesperson Mike Kaspar. This could potentially pave the way for the placement of a guardrail in that section of Malibu Canyon Road if conditions prove to necessitate it.
There is, however, another bleak reason that the roadway may not be considered especially dangerous.
“Accidents happen for one of several reasons: either it’s a curve and the driver is not paying attention and doesn’t realize it’s a curve and just keeps going, or there’s a road condition or weather condition that causes the accident,” Katz said, adding “the other thing that can cause a car to go off a canyon is the driver is intending.”
The wreck, which occurred between the Malibu Canyon Road tunnel and Pacific Coast Highway, was yards away from where the driver of a Tesla was killed after his car also careened off the road barely two months previously. Charred brush and trees can still be seen from the road near where that accident caused a small brush fire.
That, said CHP spokesperson Leland Tang, was “definitely a suicide.”
“If you wanted to stop every car from going off a cliff, you’d have to guardrail the entire Santa Monica Mountains,” Katz said. “As far as accidents are concerned, most of the people survive the accidents — if it was an unintentional accident.”
Tang said that so far in the accident investigation, there is no indication that Alvarez’s accident was a suicide.
“Right now, we have not found any evidence to indicate that it was a suicide,” Tang said, adding, “according to his family, he was happy and looking forward to his birthday celebration.”
Thursday’s accident, which happened during evening rush hour on one of the main traffic arteries in Malibu, closed Malibu Canyon Road in both directions for several hours.
