Witness Speaks Out About Deadly Santa Barbara Crash

A student was on his way home on Tuesday night when he and a friend saw a car drive at unsafe speed.

Within seconds, Isaac Calderon witnessed the car carrying four people lift up from the ground.

“Next thing you know, it gets up about 5 feet in mid-air and goes straight to into the tree. We just see sparks and smoke everywhere so we pulled over and called police,” said Isaac Calderon.

He called 911 and walked across the street to check on the car crash victims. He and other witnesses tried to communicate with them, but didn’t hear anyone respond.

The names of the crash victims have not been released. Three people were pronounced dead at the scene and one male sitting in the front passenger seat survived, but is in critical condition.

Minutes later, the Santa Barbara Police and Fire Departments responded to the crash on Cliff Drive.

“The appeared to have lost control, struck a curb, a power pole, a fire hydrant, a tree and eventually came to rest at a private residence,” said Sergeant Riley Harwood, public information officer for Santa Barbara Police Department.

Many of the residents in neighborhoods nearby the scene were still in shock and didn’t want to talk on camera. However, they were willing to tell NewsChannel 3 that there are many people who speed through Cliff Drive even though the speed limit is set at 40 miles per hour.

“It is one of the larger highways that we have in town and it does have long stretches of roadway and people have complained about speeding violations there and it is a location where we do regular traffic enforcement,” said Harwood.