Fatal Sacramento car crash death of Fatina Chaney – Obituary
Tragedy struck in the early hours of Saturday as a 19-year-old woman, Fatina Chaney, lost her life while attempting to evade a police pursuit. The heartbreaking incident unfolded on the eastbound lanes of the North Sacramento Freeway.
According to a spokesperson from the California Highway Patrol (CHP), the unfortunate event occurred shortly after 4 a.m. near the Raley Boulevard overpass on Interstate 80.
The CHP spokesperson revealed that the young woman was struck by “multiple vehicles,” with the initial impact coming from a “large vehicle.”
The sequence of events leading to this tragedy began when a vehicle crashed on the on-ramp, where Raley Boulevard transitions into Marysville Boulevard in Del Paso Heights.
Several occupants from the crashed vehicle disembarked, and one of them, a woman, ventured into the eastbound lanes of I-80 as a pedestrian, ultimately meeting a fatal collision.
Minutes prior to this devastating incident, the involved vehicle had been engaged in a police pursuit, as confirmed by both the CHP and the Sacramento Police Department.
According to a spokesperson for the Sacramento Police, officers had attempted to stop the vehicle around 3 a.m. in the vicinity of Evergreen Street and Del Paso Boulevard in Old North Sacramento.
The vehicle, however, chose to evade the police, initiating a chase that would later turn tragic. The police decided to terminate the pursuit at approximately 3:50 a.m. when they “lost sight of the vehicle.”
Moments after calling off the chase, police dispatchers received reports of a collision on the freeway, suggesting a possible connection to the fleeing suspect vehicle.
Police officers swiftly responded, securing the scene before the arrival of CHP personnel. Tragically, firefighters pronounced the woman struck by the vehicles dead at the scene.
The victim, now identified by the Coroner’s Office, was Fatina Chaney, a resident of Sacramento.
The aftermath of the crash resulted in a debris field stretching across all eastbound lanes, spanning over 200 feet of the freeway. As a result, authorities had to temporarily close all eastbound lanes.
Notably, two vehicles that had collided with the young woman stopped at the scene to cooperate with law enforcement.
The fate of the other occupants from the pursued vehicle remained uncertain, as police disclosed that the events leading up to the tragedy remained under “an active investigation.”
Eastbound lanes of the freeway remained closed at Norwood Avenue for approximately two hours, as both the CHP and the Sacramento Police Department conducted their investigations and cleared the debris field.
Caltrans crews were also dispatched to repair damaged guardrails caused by one of the vehicles striking the woman.