Chico Enterprise-Record
DAIRYVILLE, Calif. — A Lassen View School fifth-grader and her father were flown to Enloe Medical Center with major injuries after a three-car crash around 3:20 p.m. Thursday as they were leaving the school.
Emily Barajas, 10, of Los Molinos was ejected from the rear passenger window of a Nissan Frontier as it spun after being hit by a Subaru compact, said Sgt. Stephanie Drake of the Red Bluff office of the California Highway Patrol.
The truck, driven by Carlos Barajas, 47, was stopped at a stop sign at the entrance of the school parking lot, waiting to make a left turn onto Highway 99E.
The Subaru, driven by James Farris, 71, of Redding, was northbound on the highway. Drake said Farris was driving well above the speed limit and came around the curve too fast.
He was not aware that he had gone into the right turn lane and ran into the front left side of the Nissan and a Ford Explorer, also at the stop sign waiting to make a right turn.
The driver of the Explorer, Dexter Rogers, 60, of Redding, was taken by ambulance to St. Elizabeth Community Hospital in Red Bluff with moderate injuries.
Rogers’s two nieces, who are students at Lassen View, were released from the scene and picked up by other relatives.
While Farris wasn’t injured, his wife, Jessie Farris, 70, suffered moderate injuries to the neck and was taken by ambulance to St. Elizabeth, Drake said.
Caltrans closed one lane of the highway to traffic for about an hour while CHP cleared the scene.
Another three-car collision happened about two hours later just a few miles north of the scene of the afternoon crash.
Around 5:11 p.m., a car that had missed a turn onto Electric Avenue slowed and was hit by the car following it.
A third car ran into that car. Those involved suffered moderate to minor injuries.
Drake said with wet weather, people need to slow down and pay better attention.
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