Authorities have publicly identified four people who lost their lives over the last week in San Diego County traffic crashes, with three of the victims perishing in head-on collisions in the eastern reaches of the region.
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The most recent fatality took place shortly before 7 a.m. Monday, when two vehicles, one northbound and the other headed south, collided on a rural roadway about 5 miles north of Lake Cuyamaca, according to the county Medical Examiner’s Office and Cal Fire.
The crash on Pine Hills Road left one of the vehicles engulfed in flames. A passenger in one of the vehicles, 35-year-old Rafael Garcia Rojas of Julian, died at the scene. Four other people were injured in the crash, three critically, the state agency reported.
Four days earlier, a collision between a car and an SUV on Interstate 8 in Lakeside claimed the lives of two motorists. Richard Ortega, 43, and Ian Miller, 24, both of El Cajon, were fatally injured about 11 a.m. Thursday. The crash occurred when an eastbound 2023 Toyota RAV4 veered across a center median onto the other side of the freeway and collided with a westbound 2023 Honda Accord, according to the medical examiner and the California Highway Patrol.
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Ortega died at the site of the wreck near Lake Jennings Park Road. Paramedics took Miller to Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego, where he was pronounced dead shortly after arrival, according to the county agency.
About 10 p.m. last Wednesday, a motorist was mortally injured in a traffic crash on a Talmadge-area street. Dung Giang, 77, was seated in a disabled Toyota Camry on Fairmount Avenue near Aldine Drive about 10 p.m. when her vehicle was struck by a southbound Saab 9-3, according to the medical examiner and San Diego police.
An ambulance crew took Giang to Scripps Mercy Hospital, where she was pronounced dead about 45 minutes after the crash, the county agency reported.
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