4 in Bed of Pickup Truck Killed in Freeway Crash : Tragedy: The victims were among 12 people in the vehicle when it was struck from behind while parked on the shoulder. The other driver was held on suspicion of drunk driving.

Three children and a pregnant woman were killed when they were thrown from the bed of a pickup truck that was struck from behind by another vehicle on the shoulder of a freeway in Norwalk, authorities said Monday.

The accident occurred Sunday night when a pickup truck driven by a Whittier man plowed into the back of a truck loaded with 12 people that was stopped on the paved shoulder of the Santa Ana Freeway, California Highway Patrol officers said.

The driver, Michael K. Andersen, 35, was booked for investigation of felony drunk driving and manslaughter, officials reported.

Andersen’s truck, outfitted as a utility vehicle containing carpenter’s equipment, was moving “about 60 to 65 miles an hour” when the accident occurred shortly before 11 p.m., CHP Officer Dave Boyland said.

Three people were in the cab of the stopped truck, nine were in the bed and one boy was standing with his mother next to the pickup, which was stopped on the shoulder of the southbound portion of the freeway just north of Pioneer Boulevard.

“They stopped on the shoulder because a little boy, 7 years old, had to go to the bathroom,” Boyland said. “He went into the bushes, and that’s when Andersen came down with his utility carpenter truck and wiped everybody out.”

“Suddenly the truck hit the back and threw everybody out. My wife was thrown about 20 feet,” said Juan Castaneda at Memorial Hospital Medical Center in Long Beach, where his wife, Irma, 20, and daughter, Monica, 7, were both in critical condition. Their 2-year-old son, Juan, escaped injury, said Castaneda, a 21-year-old salesman from San Ysidro.

Castaneda could only recount what witnesses told him, he said, because he had not joined the family group of 14 who traveled in the pickup from the San Diego-area community to visit relatives in El Monte.

The Los Angeles County coroner’s office identified those killed as Angelica Flores, 22, and her 2-year-old daughter, Vanessa Figueroa, both of San Ysidro; Ernestina Sanchez, 13, and Ernesto Sanchez Jr., 4, both of San Diego.

CHP investigators said they were told that Flores was seven months pregnant, but coroner’s spokesman Bob Dambacher said that could not be confirmed pending an autopsy.

Boyland said Andersen had been planning to exit the freeway on the Pioneer Boulevard off-ramp.

“He was behind a semi-truck,” the officer said. “Just prior to the ramp, he pulled onto the shoulder to pass. When he saw the truck stopped on the shoulder he couldn’t come back into the lane because the semi was now alongside him. He hit the brakes and slid into the back of the pickup.”

The 10 other injured passengers, including the two in critical condition at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, were treated at five different hospitals.

Two hospitalized at Norwalk Community Hospital were described in stable condition, but their names were not released.

Six other victims were treated and released.

Results of blood alcohol tests on Andersen were not available, Boyland said.

“He admits to drinking two beers,” the officer said.

The suspect remained jailed Monday in Norwalk in lieu of $50,000 bail. Arraignment was set for Wednesday in Downey Superior Court.

State Department of Motor Vehicles records show Andersen had been cited in 1985 for driving with a suspended license, in 1988 for speeding, and in 1989 for changing lanes without due caution.

Sunday night’s crash kept all southbound freeway lanes closed for about seven hours as Caltrans crews cleared the wreckage.

Under California law, children under age 12 may ride in the back of a pickup truck if an adult is present, according to CHP spokeswoman Lydia Martinez.

The National Transportation Safety Board recommended 11 years ago that states prohibit passengers from riding in the rear of open-bed cargo trucks.

“For open highway use we don’t believe this situation should be allowed,” Claude Harris, chief of the highway division of the safety board, said Monday. “There’s no occupant protection in a front and rear impact situation and almost no protection if the vehicle is in some kind of overturn accident.”

He knew of only one state, Maryland, that has outlawed such passenger riding, after a 1979 accident there involving a pickup killed 10 of its 12 teen-age passengers.

Alice Gibbs of the National Committee on Uniform Traffic Laws and Ordinances in Evanston, Ill., said open-truck passenger riding was not prohibited in the model vehicle code the group prepares for consideration by state legislatures. The issue has been raised in the past, Gibbs said.

“It should be brought up again,” she said.