A series of tragic accidents involving local students occurred over the weekend.
By Cortney Litwin/Staff Writer
A senior at Pepperdine University was killed in a car crash Sunday near Santa Maria, Calif. while traveling back to campus from spring break, according to Carin Chapin in the public information office at Pepperdine. Amy Ecker, 20, who was visiting her parents in Atascadero, was the passenger with driver Jennifer Bergeron, also 20 and a junior at Pepperdine. Bergeron sustained minor injuries and was released from the hospital the same day.
In an earlier accident, Seaver College freshman Lindsey Lott was traveling alone on Friday at about 4 a.m. southbound on Malibu Canyon Road when she crashed, said Chapin. Details of the crash were unknown at press time. Lott was airlifted to UCLA Medical Center’s intensive care with internal injuries, where she is currently in serious but stable condition.
Malibu High School student Ryan Malloy, 18, was allegedly speeding along Corral Canyon Road on Friday afternoon when he overturned his Cadillac. According to Lost Hills/Malibu Sheriff’s Deputy Hugh Wahler, Malloy “failed to negotiate the curve, ran off into a wall and a sign, bounced off that, flipped his car and landed on the other side of the roadway.”
Wahler said the teen is accused of driving at unsafe speeds. He was treated at the scene for abrasions to the face and neck before being taken to a Santa Monica hospital, complaining of neck and head pains.
In the final outcome of a tragedy from last summer, an intoxicated driver whose passenger was killed in an accident was sentenced Feb. 27 to 6 years in prison. On Aug. 22 at 3:20 a.m., Tarek Tolba, 29, from Santa Monica, was speeding in his Mercedes at more than 100 mph on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, according to witnesses, when he crashed into a utility pole. His passenger, 24-year-old Andrea Schackne of San Diego, was killed when she was ejected from the car and thrown to the side of the highway. Flames soon engulfed the vehicle and Tolba was pulled to safety by Kevin Crane, a flight attendant who was returning to his Malibu home.
Debris scattered over the highway, with the Mercedes’ engine 100 feet from the crash site, was a testament to the severity of an accident that is not an uncommon occurrence on PCH.