Driver Loses Control, Rams House

A Grass Valley woman was injured when she lost control of her Jeep Grand Cherokee and smashed into a house in southern Nevada County on Monday morning.

No one in the home was injured.

Camile Beene was in stable condition Monday night at Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital, a nursing supervisor said.

Beene, 56, was driving southwest on Stinson Drive at about 10:30 a.m. when she veered off the road, said Officer John Fernandez of the California Highway Patrol.

She narrowly missed a utility pole, went by a couple of pine trees and crashed into the front of Tomoko Carlson's house at 14903 Stinson Drive, Fernandez said. Beene's air bag deployed, but it was not known if she had her seat belt on.

"We are not sure, but she may have had a preexisting medical condition," said Chief Tim Fike of the Nevada County Consolidated Fire Protection District. If so, that may have contributed to the accident, Fike said. Four teenagers were in the house when the car hit, Carlson said - her sons, Paul, 13, and Andy, 15, daughter Crystal, 18, and a friend of Crystal's, Kasandra Satrapa, 18.

"I lived near Chino and I went through a couple small earthquakes," Crystal Carlson said. "I knew this wasn't an earthquake, but the whole house shook."

The teenagers ran out of the house to help Beene, Crystal Carlson said. Satrapa called 911.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection dispatchers gave the teens instructions on rendering aid, Carlson said.

"She wasn't responding and I had to rub her sternum," Carlson said. "She came around said she was fine and went back to sleep like she was exhausted."

Emergency medical personnel from Nevada County Consolidated arrived and Sierra Nevada Hospital ambulance took Beene to the hospital.

Tomoko Carlson, her husband and children have lived in the Nevada County house for three years, she said.

Fike estimated the damage to the home to be $10,000.

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