Families of Bodega Bay crash victims question CHP report

They were two promising teenagers, the trajectory of their lives changed in an instant by a high-speed crash into an unyielding eucalyptus tree.

The late night drive along the Sonoma Coast killed the driver, leaving a grieving family struggling for answers and the mother of the gravely injured passenger challenging the preliminary version of events.

Endrias Atlaw and Aleksandra Ivanova, 18, who both worked at In-N-Out Burger in Santa Rosa, were driving on Highway 1 just before 2 a.m. Sunday when Atlaw’s 2004 Honda Civic went off the road near Bay Hill Road and hit a tree, wrapping the car around it on the driver’s side.

Atlaw, a Santa Rosa native and 2016 honors graduate of Maria Carrillo High School, was wearing a seat belt but died in the collision. Ivanova was able to get out of the wrecked car and was aided by bystanders until paramedics responded.

An active member of the youth group at Rock Calvary Church, Atlaw was attending Santa Rosa Junior College on a Doyle scholarship and his aptitude for mathematics had him considering applying to Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the future.

His father, Fesseha Atlaw, said his son had excellent SAT scores and a John Hopkins University recruiter had been calling him.

“He’s one of those kids you say ‘he knows what’s he’s doing. He’s a straight shooter,” his father said Wednesday as he stood in the family kitchen off Hoen Avenue.

As he spoke about his son, visitors brought food and condolences, and there were floral deliveries from friends and co-workers of the elder Atlaw, who migrated from Ethiopia decades ago and now works as an engineer at Medtronic.

The father said the support from church members has been amazing.

“We are Christian. We believe our days are numbered. God does everything for a purpose and everything works out,” he said.

Ivanova is a Santa Rosa Junior College student and graduate of Technology High School in Rohnert Park. Her mother said she is a 4.0 GPA student and has been active in student government while working at the hamburger restaurant.

“She’s a hard worker, a very determined student,” her mother said.

Santa Rosa Junior College English teacher Murleen Ray said she was devastated to learn of the fatal crash and injuries to Ivanova, one of her students. Ray wrote in an email that Ivanova, who goes by “Alaska,” is a “lively, intelligent and thoughtful” student. “She has been one of the bright stars in my English class.”

The manager at In-N-Out Burger declined comment, but a co-worker described the two as “beautiful kids” and added that Atlaw was “a very spirited young man, with a good attitude about life.”

The restaurant was reaching out to employees to help them deal with their grief, even bringing in therapy dogs.

Both families are skeptical of an initial CHP report that alcohol may have been to blame.

Atlaws’s father said his son didn’t like to drink.

“He’s just not that kind,” Atlaw said of his deceased son, who lived with him part-time. He also lived part-time with his mother, Hanna Asfah.

“That’s not in his personality. I’d never suspect alcohol was a factor,” agreed Nat Atlaw, the older brother of Endrias.

Svetlana Clark of Rohnert Park said her daughter and Atlaw were friends and co-workers and had headed to a beach on the Sonoma coast for an after-work gathering with others from the hamburger restaurant.

“A group of people were going to the beach after work. They were not drinking. They did not have drugs,” Clark said.

Clark said her daughter’s injuries included a concussion, broken collarbone, two broken ribs and broken pelvic bones, lots of bruises and cuts. She underwent surgery on Tuesday and is considered to be in stable condition at Stanford Hospital with a lengthy recovery ahead. An initial CHP report said Ivanova had been unbelted in the crash and afterward was combative and appeared to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Her mother said the family was told by a doctor that she had injuries consistent with wearing a seat belt and that’d she’d likely been in shock at the time, making her appear to be impaired. Clark also said tests at the hospital showed her daughter had no signs of alcohol or drugs in her blood.

And Clark defended Atlaw, saying she didn’t believe he would drink and drive.

The CHP investigation determined Atlaw made an unsafe turning movement that caused him to go off of the coast highway and hit the tree, CHP Officer Jon Sloat said Wednesday.

A CHP release Sunday said officers who responded to the crash suspected alcohol was involved, but Wednesday Sloat said that while some kind of impairment was suspected, conclusive blood test results are still pending.

Atlaw’s father said he visited the crash site and saw the skid marks, making him wonder if there was perhaps an oncoming vehicle his son was trying to avoid. But he also conceded the young man may just have been going too fast.

In a biography written for his son’s 1 p.m. service today at The Rock Calvary Chapel, he said, “While we have no doubt he is at God’s blossom, he will be sorely missed,” and quoted from the Bible’s Book of Job: “The Lord has given; The Lord has taken away.”

Atlaw said that four days before the fatal crash he had a disturbing dream about his son and texted him, “How are you son? I saw you in my dream are you OK?”

The young man replied that he was all right.?“I love you,” the father responded back.

“It’s difficult for me to see this,” the father said as he showed a reporter the phone texts.

“God was giving me a heads up.”

You can reach Staff Writer Clark Mason at 707-521-5214 or clark.mason@pressdemocrat.com