A woman died after the driver of a car she was riding in drunkenly lost control of his vehicle and swerved into oncoming lanes near the Traffic Circle, according to police.
The crash happened around 2:40 this morning on Pacific Coast Highway near Grand Avenue. The driver of a 1999 Lincoln Town Car was headed east on PCH at a high rate of speed when he lost control, police said.
The car spun to the left and crossed into the westbound lanes of PCH where the passenger-side door was broadsided by a 2014 Cadillac XTS, according to a news release.
The passenger in the Town Car and the driver of the XTS both had to be extricated from the wreckage by firefighters, authorities said.
The XTS’s driver, a 49-year-old from Garden Grove, suffered minor injuries, but the passenger in the Town Car died after being rushed to the hospital, police said. She was a 21-year-old from Bellflower, but police withheld her name pending the notification of her next-of-kin.
The Town Car’s driver, identified as Osvaldo Ramirez-Vazquez, was arrested and booked into Long Beach Jail on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol and vehicular manslaughter, police said. He suffered minor injuries in the crash, according to authorities.