Four people were injured Saturday in a Highway 126 crash that ripped out a tree and left two people trapped inside the vehicle until the tree limbs could be removed.
The July 19 accident occurred at 1:23 p.m. on eastbound Highway 126, west of Briggs Road.
Not many details were available on the accident that according to witnesses occurred when a Tacoma truck carrying four people left the roadway and slammed into an off-road tree with enough force to rip it out of the ground. The flipped vehicle and the tree were so entangled that two people were trapped.
Two people who had been riding in the truck were outside the vehicle when emergency responders - including the Santa Paula, Ventura City and Ventura County Fire departments - responded to the scene, as did the California Highway Patrol.
Several dogs that had been riding in the vehicle also managed to escape the truck and one had wandered onto the highway but was brought back to the crash scene without incident.
The branches of the tree kept two people pinned in the vehicle, which had landed on its roof but were extricated by emergency responders.
Four people - two men and two women - were injured; two with injuries described as moderate to major were transported to Ventura County Medical Center and those with minor injures taken to Los Robles Medical Center in Thousand Oaks.
A friend of one of the vehicle’s occupants arrived on scene and took custody of the dogs.
The crash tied up traffic on eastbound Highway126 until about 4:30 p.m.
The CHP is investigating the circumstances of the crash.
