At 10:22 p.m. on Monday night, a pile-up occurred on the eastbound lanes of the I-8 freeway, which resulted in two deaths and the California Highway Patrol shutting down those lanes.
According to CHP, a driver lost control of his vehicle, crashed into another car and overturned his vehicle. Another car crashed into the pile-up, at which point a La Mesa police officer, 25-year-old Lauren Craven, pulled over and attempted to render aid to the victims. She was then struck by another vehicle and killed. The 20-year-old driver of the overturned vehicle was killed in the crash.
The I-8 east was subsequently closed between I-15 and Waring Road, according to NBC 7 San Diego. Eastbound drivers were diverted to southbound I-15, and north and southbound rivers were diverted to Fairmount and Montezuma Road.
Fourth-year student Benjamin Avery Whiff said he was on I-8 when the crash occurred.
“Traffic just came to a halt, and then there was cruiser after cruiser… just going by,” he recalled. “And I was like, okay, this is getting kind of serious.”On the death of the police officer, Whiff said, “It was a brutal thing.”
Raleigh Hebner, a third-year journalism student, described difficulty commuting to campus this morning.
“It usually takes me an average of 12 minutes to get here,” Hebner, who lives near Fashion Valley Mall, said. “It took me 35 minutes to get to Parking 7 this morning.”
“I’m really hoping they get it open soon because I don’t want to have to deal with that anymore,” she added.
Ariana Martinez, a third-year mechanical engineering student who commutes from Carlsbad, said she missed a class this morning due to the road closure. Her commute was around “an hour and 30 minutes” long.
“I had to take an unusual route that I usually don’t take, so I was stressing about that,” she said.
The I-8 is now open to traffic as of 1:02 p.m.