News briefs for May 24, 2005

Tuesday, May 24, 2005 | 9:39 a.m.

Four-car crash kills LV woman

A 52-year-old Las Vegas woman was killed Monday morning in a four-car crash on Durango Drive near Flamingo Road.

Metro Police said an 18-year-old driver made an unsafe lane change, triggering the chain reaction about 6:40 a.m. that killed Oralia H. Rodriguez.

Robert Mitchell Clark, 18, was heading south on Durango in a 1993 Ford Explorer when he switched lanes, hitting the side of a 1995 Ford Mustang driven by Amanda Rae Long, 17, Detective Doug Nutton said. The impact forced the Mustang into the next lane, which caused a 1993 Plymouth Colt to veer left into the northbound lanes, he said.

The Colt, driven by Aureliano Rodriguez, 58, of Las Vegas was hit nearly head-on by a 1995 Pontiac Grand Am driven by Christine Torres-Acopiado, 17. Oralia Rodriguez was a passenger in the Colt, police said.

Aureliano Rodriguez was taken to University Medical Center to be treated for life-threatening injuries and Torres-Acopiado was being treated for serious injuries. None of the other people involved were injured. All are from Las Vegas, police said.

The cause of the wreck appears to be Clark's unsafe lane change, Nutton said. Detectives are still investigating; no charges have been filed.

Woman killed in hit-and-run

A 21-year-old Las Vegas woman was killed in a hit-and-run collision on Interstate 215 near Eastern Avenue on Monday afternoon, the Nevada Highway Patrol said.

Trooper Loy Hixson said about 4:30 p.m. a red car struck a sport utility vehicle, sending it spinning across the westbound lanes.

The sport utility vehicle hit a car driven by Elizabeth Valdivia, who was ejected and died at the scene, police said.

The driver of the red car fled after the collision, Hixson said.

The freeway was closed during the rush hour for more than two hours as troopers investigated the wreck.

Guinn appoints three delegates

Gov. Kenny Guinn on Monday named three delegates to the 2005 White House Conference on Aging to be held in December.

They are Socorro Castro, a member of the Nevada Commission on Aging from Las Vegas; Janice Ayres, executive director of the Nevada rural counties program on aging, and Mary Liveratti, deputy director of the state Department of Human Resources.

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