Car Crash Survivor’s Condition Upgraded

A woman who was seriously injured in a crash in Santa Rosa Valley that killed two people remained hospitalized Wednesday, but her condition has improved, hospital officials said.

Oxnard resident Arlene Brown, 56, was the only survivor of a head-on collision Monday morning on a flat stretch of Santa Rosa Road about 500 feet west of Vista Grande Drive, California Highway Patrol officers said.

Brown, an administrative assistant at Simi Valley Hospital, underwent surgery Monday afternoon at Los Robles Regional Medical Center for multiple internal and external injuries, Kris Carraway-Bowman, a hospital spokeswoman, said. Brown was in the hospital’s intensive care unit Wednesday night where her condition had been upgraded from critical to serious but stable.

Carraway-Bowman did not know the exact nature of Brown’s injuries or when she might be released. “She’s recuperating and family members are visiting,” Carraway-Bowman said.

Killed in Monday’s crash was Brown’s mother, 85-year-old Sadie Marie Green, a Simi Valley resident, and Chatsworth resident George David Snider, 41. Both died from blunt force injuries, the Ventura County medical examiner’s office said Wednesday.

Snider was driving his 1986 Toyota Celica west on the two-lane road when he veered across the center line and struck hit a 1993 Ford Thunderbird driven by Brown. Officers have not established a cause for the crash, but witnesses said Snider was driving erratically prior to impact. Snider was traveling to his job in Camarillo, officers said. Toxicology tests on Snider are expected to take several weeks.