Posted by cathy on Tuesday, June 16, 2009 at 04:47:06 :
Independent Journal
Monday, March 13, 1967
Page 1
Two Motorists Killed On Stormy Roadways
Accidents Occur In Downpour
Two motorists were killed in Marin County last night and today as sudden squalls of hail, rain and high wind forced their vehicles off water-slick roads.
Dean De La Montanya Jr., 35, a member of a prominent Marin family, died instantly, trapped in his overturned car, last night. Charles Henry Hoover, 23, of San Francisco was killed when he was thrown from his truck as it plunged off Highway 101 today.
The California Highway Patrol said both accidents happened at the height of storm downpours.
De La Montanya, former dairyman and restaurant operator of San Geronimo Valley, was killed on the Point Reyes, Petaluma Road at 7:30 p.m. yesterday.
Highway Patrol officers said he was driving with his wife, Irene, in a convertible towards Sebastopol where he was to visit his father, Dean De La Montanya Sr.
As he crested a hill in the darkness and the rain, he failed to negotiate a curve. The car plunged down a steep bank and overturned, pinning him in the driver’s seat.
Asst. County Coroner Eugene R. Fontaine estimated death from massive head injuries was immediate.
Montanya’s wife struggled for an hour to free herself from the tangled wreckage, and managed to hail down a passing motorist. She was treated in Petaluma Hospital for minor injuries.
Patrol officers said the car went through a barbed wire fence after leaving the road, sailed 40 feet through the air and flipped end-over-end.
A short time earlier, the De La Montanyas had left their four children, Dennis, 14, Stephen, 12, Denice, 10, and Edward, 8, in the care of a baby sitter at their home at 45 Sylvestris Drive, San Geronimo.
A native of San Rafael, De La Montanya was the valley’s distributor for Lucas Valley Dairy for 12 years and was also a cattle buyer.
About two years ago, he took over the Villa Lucchesi restaurant in San Geronimo, changing its name to De La Montanya’s. A year ago he gave up the restaurant – now the Oak Tree Inn – and became a dairy salesman for Berkeley Farm.
Hoover’s pickup truck skidded off the California Hill overpass of Highway 101 at 6:55 a.m. today and dropped 50 feet to the railroad below.
A witness, William Weitzel of San Rafael, told highway patrol officers he saw the truck weaving from left to right of the highway during a sudden hail storm, then disappear over a guard rail.
The body of Hoover was found outside the pickup truck. He was dead from multiple head injuries, reported Assistant Coroner Fontaine.
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