Crime & Safety

Hit-and-Run Collision Results in Car Fire, Exposed Electrical Lines

The 19-year-old driver was no longer at the scene when emergency crews arrived.

By Autumn Johnson

Firefighters responded to a crashed car in flames shortly after midnight Thursday in the Ruby Hill subdivision.

In what appeared to be a single-vehicle accident, the auto was flipped on its side and fully engulfed in flames along East Ruby Hill Drive, just north of the Vallecitos Road entrance gate, when rescue crews arrived. 

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According to Sergeant Robert Leong, when officers arrived the driver of the vehicle was nowhere to be found.

Leong said, via email:

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"As officers were investigating the collision and trying to determine whether anyone had been injured in the crash, a man arrived at the accident scene and advised officers that his 19-year-old son was the driver. Officers asked the father for the whereabouts of his son and any possible passengers so their health and welfare could be checked but the father would not disclose his son’s location."

Leong said the roadway was closed for a couple of hours during the investigation of the collision.

Livermore Pleasanton Fire Battalion Chief Jack Neiman-Kimel told Patch, via email: 

"On our arrival there was a vehicle fully involved with fire.  Two engines arrived simultaneously and one engine went to put the fire out and the other engine went to look for the patient and prepared to pull him/her from the burning vehicle.  Pleasanton PD informed us that the driver had fled the scene.  The fire was extinguished and it was confirmed there was no driver or passengers in the vehicle.  The vehicle had left the roadway and ended up on the embankment.  In doing so, it damaged an electrical box that supplied electricity to the landscape sprinkler system in that area.  Now we had exposed hot electrical lines coming from the ground.  The vehicle landed on top of the landscape sprinkler valve box and the valves melted from the heat of the fire.  There was now large amounts of water coming from the ground.  Crews were able to find another valve box and shut the system down.  PG&E arrived on scene and secured the live electrical line.  No firefighter or civilian injuries were reported."

One area resident reported hearing a lengthy squealing of tires before the sound of the impact.

Around 6:40 a.m., Leong says the police department was notified by phone that the driver had returned home.

Leong says the investigation is ongoing and asks that anyone with information call the Pleasanton Police Department at 925-931-5100.      



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