Former teacher killed, 9 injured after truck causes chain-reaction crash on Hwy 12 in Santa Rosa

SANTA ROSA, Calif. -- One driver died and nine other people were injured in a chain-reaction crash at a Santa Rosa intersection on Thursday afternoon, officials said in updated reports about the collision.

That driver was 78-year-old Pat LaFortune, a former history teacher and track coach at Santa Rosa's Cardinal Newman High School, according to an alumni Facebook page.

The crash happened about 11:50 a.m., when a dump truck plowed into a line of 11 cars waiting at a red light on Highway 12 at Fulton Road, authorities said.

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A pickup truck was on fire when firefighters arrived, and its driver was dead, according to the Santa Rosa Fire Department. The driver's name has not been released.

Several other vehicles were badly damaged and a total of nine people were hospitalized -- three of them with major injuries, fire officials said.

Westbound Highway 12 at Stony Point Road through Fulton Road was closed for more than four hours after the crash, but reopened shortly after 4 p.m.