[symple_googlemap title=”Pick-Up Crash” location=”Sierra Highway and Rush Canyon Truck Trail, Santa Clarita, CA” height=”300″ zoom=”10″]
The Coroner’s Office Saturday identified the three 19- year-olds who were killed when a pickup truck they were in with two other 19- year-olds veered off a road in Santa Clarita and rolled about 200 feet down an embankment.
The teenagers were identified as Jake Gnasso, April Townsend and Ian Bulbenko, said Coroner’s Lt. David Smith.
Smith said he had no place of residence for the teenagers.
All were students at John Burroughs High School in Burbank, according to CBS2.
The two survivors suffered moderate injuries. One was taken to Henry Mayo Hospital in Newhall and the other to Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills, according to the California Highway Patrol.
The crash off Sierra Highway at Rush Canyon Truck Trail occurred about 1:30 a.m. Friday, but wasn’t reported until 7:32 a.m. Friday, when one of the injured victims regained consciousness and called 911, according to the CHP.
“It was an off-road area and the driver was apparently doing some kind of off-road style driving and lost control of his vehicle,” CHP Officer Eric Priessman said. “We don’t know if alcohol played a role in the crash, but we are still looking at that possibility.”
Gnasso, Townsend and Bulbenko were pronounced dead at the scene and recovered from the crumpled 2001 Chevrolet pickup truck, according to the CHP.
The two injured victims were both men, one from Burbank and the other from Sunland, according to the CHP, which reported that both were properly restrained by seatbelts. News reports identified the injured men as Zach Maina and Tim Gorman, who is from Sunland.
Neither deceased passenger used a seatbelt, but the driver did, according to a CHP report.
—City News Service