Victims of Highway 108 crash identified

Amy Alonzo Rozak/The Union Democrat, copyright 2009

Killed in the 2:58 p.m. wreck were Ronald Lancaster, 60, of Sonora and Sheri Pratt, 63, of Sonora.

According to the California Highway Patrol, the Sonora woman was behind the wheel of an eastbound 1992 Ford Bronco. A witness said she was driving erratically and veered into the oncoming lane just beyond Via Este. This forced Lancaster, driving west in a 2001 Subaru Outback, onto the shoulder, said CHP spokesman Tom Wills said.
  

The Bronco went back into the eastbound lane, but it then swerved into the oncoming lane again, this time hitting Lancaster’s car.

The Subaru came to rest on the north shoulder of the road near a telephone pole. Lancaster died at the scene.

The Bronco then careened into a westbound 2006 Toyota Highlander driven by Lenore Gray, 58, of Richmond.

Emergency crews extracted the Sonora woman from the mangled Bronco and took her by helicopter to Memorial Medical Center in Modesto, where she died of her injuries, Wills said.

Crews also rescued a dog from the Bronco and turned it over to Tuolumne County Animal Control.

The front driver’s side of the Highlander was crushed, but Gray was uninjured.

Gray, who has a cabin in Long Barn, was on her way to shop in Sonora when the crash occurred.

She remembers seeing the Bronco rolling and spinning.

“All I saw was a car coming at me,” she said.

A labor and delivery nurse, Gray tried to help the woman in the Bronco, but there was nothing she could do.

She feels lucky to have survived a crash that ultimately killed the other two involved.

“They paid a heavy price,” she said.

“Mine’s just a car.”

The cause of the collision is under investigation.