Windsor Hills Crash: Nurse Arrested On Manslaughter Charges

WINDSOR HILLS, CA — A nurse has been arrested on vehicular manslaughter charges stemming from a fiery crash in Windsor Hills that left five people dead, including a pregnant woman and baby.

Surveillance video captured the moment a speeding car ran a red light in Windsor Hills and plowed into cars in a busy intersection Thursday, igniting a fireball outside a gas station.

Video posted on social media showed a Mercedes-Benz sedan speeding through the intersection and careen into cars on La Brea Avenue, near Slauson Avenue. The wreck happened about 10 miles southwest of downtown Los Angeles.

The Mercedes driver was arrested and would be booked on vehicular manslaughter charges, multiple media outlets reported.

She was identified as Nicole Lorraine Linton, 37, highway patrol troopers said in a news release.

40-year-old nurse and was traveling between 80 and 100 mph at the time of the crash, the Times reported.

The impact threw several people from multiple cars. Two vehicles burst into flames.

Veronica Esquival told KTLA-TV the crash flung a baby.

“All of the sudden, a baby literally flew from the middle of the intersection to the middle of the gas station and landed right on the floor in front of me,” Esquival told the TV station. “One of the workers came and saw me with the baby and took the baby out of my hands. Somebody tried to resuscitate the baby, but the baby was gone.”

Three adults, including one who was pregnant, and a baby all died in the wreck, which involved as many as six vehicles. A fifth body was later found inside a burned car, highway patrol Officer Franco Pepi told reporters at a news conference Thursday evening.

State troopers counted an unborn child, as a sixth death “due to rare circumstances,” Pepi said, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner identified the pregnant woman killed in the wreck as Asheray Ryan, 23, and her unborn son.

Eight people were taken to a hospital, including the 40-year-old woman who was driving the Mercedes. She was driving at least 50 mph through the busy intersection, Pepi said. The woman suffered major injuries.

Six children and a 33-year-old woman suffered minor injuries. The youngest child was 13 months, and the others were 8, 11, 13, 14 and 1y5, KNBC reported. A ninth injured person declined to be taken to a hospital.

The cause of the crash remains unknown.