Victims Of Fatal San Diego-Area Traffic Accidents ID'd

SAN DIEGO, CA —Authorities have publicly identified six people who were killed in recent San Diego-area traffic accidents, including two wrecks that each claimed a pair of lives.

The latest of the roadway fatalities took place about 7:45 a.m. March 31, when a westbound Ford SUV veered off a curving stretch of Gopher Canyon Road in Bonsall and crashed into a ditch near Valley of the King Road, according to the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office. The driver, 47- year-old Madeline Afasene of Oceanside, died at the site of the accident.

Three of the traffic deaths occurred March 30, the agency reported. At about 2:30 p.m. that day, Rachquel Andersen, 43, was driving an Acura SUV that collided with a pickup while traveling to the east on Betsworth Road at Lilac Road in Valley Center. An ambulance crew took Andersen, a Valley Center resident, to Palomar Medical Center in Escondido, where she was pronounced dead.

Roughly 12 hours earlier, a collision involving a wrong-way driver on Interstate 15 in Escondido left two motorists dead. Shortly before 2:30 a.m. that day, 36-year-old Diego Jose Gutierrez of Escondido was driving a 2013 Volkswagen Jetta that was struck head-on by a 2011 BMW 328i being driven by 33- year-old Jesus Rivera Robles, address unknown, to the north on the southbound side of the freeway near Deer Springs Road, according to the medical examiner. Both men died at the scene.

The other two roadway fatalities also resulted from a single crash, the county agency reported.

Shortly before 12:30 a.m. on March 29, San Diego resident Abraham Arana, 22, lost control of the car he was driving on an elevated transition ramp from eastbound state Route 94 to northbound SR-15 in the Grant Hill area, about a mile east of Balboa Park.

The vehicle crashed into a freeway sign before plunging off the bridge and landing on the westbound side of SR-94. Arana and a passenger in the car, San Diego resident Amanda Silva-Flores, also 22, died before paramedics could transport them to a hospital.

— City News Service