http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stori ... 10222.html

Today: February 23, 2006 at 12:27:11 PST

Sole survivor in car hit by NHP cruiser out of coma in Las Vegas

ASSOCIATED PRESS

LAS VEGAS (AP) - The only survivor in a car hit by a speeding Nevada Highway Patrol cruiser has emerged from a coma at a hospital where her condition has been upgraded to fair, a family member and lawyer said.

Cecilia Lopez Cruz, 16, opened her eyes Wednesday and recognized people, but could not speak, her stepfather, Marco Sanchez Vazquez, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal for a Thursday report.

Cruz is three months pregnant with twins that doctors told family members appeared to be healthy, Sanchez Vazquez said through a Spanish-language interpreter.

Cruz, whose husband was among four people killed in the Sunday night crash on Interstate 15 south of Las Vegas, suffered pelvis, rib and lower back fractures and internal injuries, said a lawyer hired for the family by the Mexican Consulate in Las Vegas.

Lawyer Eva Garcia-Mendoza said Cruz was "awake, alert, and her pregnancy is viable."

"The doctor told me the chances of her getting well are very good," Garcia-Mendoza said.

Killed in the crash were Cruz's 21-year-old husband, Victor De La Cruz-De Leon; her sister, 21-year-old Reymunda Lopez-Vazquez; Sanchez Vazquez's brother, 42-year-old Jose Sanchez Lopez; and a 19-year-old family friend, Jose Roberto Mejia Lang.

All were illegal immigrants from Acapetahua, a small town in the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas, family members told the newspaper. They lived in the St. George area of southwest Utah, where they worked construction and landscaping jobs.

The consulate planned to help pay the $18,000 cost of shipping the bodies home.

A man who appeared on camera but was identified only by a first name, "Chris," told KLAS-TV in Las Vegas that he saw the patrol cruiser speed past him on the freeway late Sunday without headlights, and that he aided the trooper after the wreck.

The witness said the trooper spoke by cell phone with dispatchers, and said paramedics treated the trooper before Cruz, who was trapped in the wreckage of the Cadillac.

Garcia-Mendoza said she thought the trooper, 28-year-old Joshua M. Corcran, a five-year NHP veteran, received preferential treatment from authorities.

Corcran was released from a hospital Monday and remained on medical leave with broken bones, cuts and bruises. He has not yet been interviewed by police on the advice of his lawyer, police said.

Las Vegas police were investigating the crash to avoid having the Highway Patrol investigate a crash involving one of its officers. Corcran could face vehicular manslaughter charges under a Nevada law making it a felony to cause a crash resulting in death.

Police were still calculating the speed of the vehicles. But police Capt. Tom Conlin has said investigators think the 1988 Cadillac DeVille was going at or near 65 mph, the speed limit for that stretch of highway, when the Highway Patrol cruiser hit it from behind.

Corcran's marked blue Ford Crown Victoria did not have its overhead lights or siren activated, Conlin said, adding that investigators were checking whether Corcran was in pursuit of another vehicle or responding to an emergency call when he crashed.