Teenager killed in Merced County crash just off of highway
A 19-year-old Chowchilla woman was killed Wednesday when the car in which she was riding overturned on Highway 99, the California Highway Patrol reported.
The woman’s name was not immediately available Thursday as investigators worked to notify her family.
She was a passenger in a 2005 Honda Civic that was heading north on Highway 99 around 5:50 p.m. The driver, identified by officers as 20-year-old Merced man Alexis Medina Esqueda, told investigators he lost control of the car in the area of Silveira Way and Buchanan Hollow Road. The car drifted to the right shoulder and overturned multiple times.
Both people were trapped inside the car and had to be removed by emergency responders.
Medina Esqueda suffered unspecified minor injuries and was taken to a Modesto hospital for treatment. The woman was pronounced dead at the scene.
Neither drugs nor alcohol appear to have been factors. The cause of the crash remained under investigation Thursday.
Thaddeus Miller: 209-385-2453, @thaddeusmiller
This story was originally published September 28, 2017 at 10:24 AM with the headline "Teenager killed in Merced County crash just off of highway."