One dead, two injured in six-vehicle crash involving FedEx truck in Cerritos

One person was killed and at least two others were injured Wednesday in a six-vehicle crash involving a FedEx truck in Cerritos, authorities and eyewitnesses said.

The multicar crash was reported around 9:08 a.m. at Bloomfield Avenue and South Street, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Cerritos station.

One person was pronounced dead at the scene, and another individual was transported to the hospital with injuries, according to the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

A second person was injured but not taken to a hospital, said Geovanni Sanchez, a Fire Department spokesperson.

Cesar Alarcon, the driver of the FedEx truck, said he was at a stoplight when he heard the impact from the collision.

“I kind of froze,” the 16-year FedEx employee said at the scene. “I looked down, and I saw how it was all mangled,” he said of the wreckage that surrounded him.

Video from the scene showed the FedEx truck angled across several lanes of the intersection, its frame bent and a side panel caved in. Packages were strewn about the roadway next to a crumpled dark gray sedan.

“It was an explosion,” said Roxanne Harris, who was driving with her two daughters — ages 15 and 7 — when the collision occurred behind them.

“I see this black smoke behind me and debris flying over us,” said Harris, who said she and her children were not injured.

Harris said she saw a man in the mangled wreckage of a Mercedes, and that first responders were still trying to extricate him from the vehicle hours after the crash.

Alarcon said he also saw a person who did not appear to be moving trapped in the car.

Harris said she was told that the Mercedes was driving very fast — an estimated 80 mph — when it slammed into the FedEx truck.

A midsize silver SUV also was damaged in the crash, as were three other vehicles.