Mount Pinos (Monday, Feb. 28, 7:30 a.m.)—A five-year-old boy ran into the path of a California Highway Patrol vehicle on Sunday, Feb. 27. He was playing in the snow on Mount Pinos, just east of McGill Campground (just up the road from Pine Mountain, about 16 miles west of Frazier Park).

According to a report issued by CHP this morning, Officer K. Caid was traveling eastbound at about 15-20 miles per hour on Cuddy Valley Road, near the McGill Campground in the Mt. Pinos Recreation area at about 2:09 p.m. The child ran "directly into the path of Officer Caids’s patrol vehicle" from between two parked vehicles, the report states.

The CHP account says witnesses told investigators that Caid took evasive action, "but was unable to avoid the child."

The boy was taken by ambulance to the Chuchupate Ranger Station in the Lockwood Valley area west of Lake of the Woods and airlifted to Kern Medical Center. It is reported that the child received a broken femur and contusions to the head. A Bakersfield CHP Sergeant responded to the Kern Medical Center to meet the helicopter, the report says, and the child’s parents were transported by CHP to the hospital. CHP’s major accident investigation team was called out to investigate the collision.

This is part of the February 25, 2011 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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