Girl Killed by Car Lost Control of Skates on Steep Hill : Accidents: Roller-blader from Georgia who was visiting relatives ran a stop sign and was hit by a vehicle going 23 m.p.h.

THOUSAND OAKS —  It’s the kind of hill where skateboarders like to test their mettle.

But Jennifer Svobeda, a 15-year-old visiting from Georgia, was just roller-blading with friends Thursday night when she hit the steep grade on Thousand Oaks’ Rosario Drive.

Jennifer lost control of her in-line skates, ran a stop sign and was hit by a car. She was pronounced dead later that night at Los Robles Regional Medical Center.

“I screamed, but the car came too quickly,” her 12-year-old cousin, Katie Ruffino, recalled Friday, choking back tears. “I’m going to miss her. I loved her so much. She was always smiling.”

Katie, who was riding her bicycle nearby, raced down the hill to try to help her cousin, but arrived at the intersection as the accident happened.

Sheriff’s deputies said Devlon Carter, 22, of Temecula, was driving about 23 m.p.h. down La Granada Drive in Thousand Oaks--which is lined with 25 m.p.h. and “Slow. Children Walking to School” signs--about 8:20 p.m.

But the road has no street lights, and Carter was unable to stop in time to avoid hitting the young skater. No charges will be filed against Carter, deputies said.

Jennifer’s death is the first in-line skating fatality in Ventura County’s history, and the second in California this year. In January, a 9-year-old Los Angeles boy was killed when he skated into an intersection and was hit by a school bus.

Ventura County Sheriff’s Deputy Ken Bailey said Jennifer was crouched over in an effort to stop, but had picked up too much speed by the time she reached the bottom of the hill.

“Had she stood up, she would have just been hit in the legs and she would have suffered maybe a broken leg,” Bailey said. Bailey also said that Jennifer was not wearing a helmet or any protective pads.

Consumer Product Safety Commission spokeswoman Karen Kraushaar estimates that as many as two-thirds of the victims of in-line skating accidents are not wearing safety equipment.

Because of the increasing popularity of the sport, the commission predicts the number of injuries requiring medical treatment will increase sharply this year.

The agency estimates 105,000 in-line skating injuries will require a trip to the hospital emergency room in 1995, compared to 76,000 in 1994.

Of the 25 fatalities in the sport since 1992, 15 were children under the age of 15, according to the commission. Twenty of those deaths were the result of collisions with motor vehicles.

In 1994, 58% of the injuries from in-line skating were to children 15 and under.

In addition to protective equipment, Kraushaar recommends instruction.

“Maybe just one quick course on how to stop. Not enough people know how to slow down . . . with these skates you can get a real head of steam up, and before people know it, they are going really fast.”

Family members said Jennifer Svobeda knew how to use her in-line skates.

“I’ve watched her skate and she was a very good skater. She’s been skating for years,” James Burnham of Oak Park said of the oldest of his 13 grandchildren. Jennifer, who lived in Marietta, Ga., was an athletic 10th-grader who played on the school basketball and volleyball teams and worked as a swim coach for her neighborhood club.

The accident, Burnham said, was an untimely tragedy.

“I went down to that corner this morning and timed the cars,” he continued. “They came by, maybe, every three minutes. It was just a matter of bad timing.”

Neighbor John Retzler, who started CPR on Jennifer after the accident, said the Rosario Drive hill in front of his home had been a popular route for daring skateboarders, but he had not seen any of them involved in accidents.

“We have had a problem with skateboarders trying to break land speed records,” he said.

“This is what hits you when you have a daughter,” Retzler said, thinking of his own athletic 18-year-old. “This is a 15-year-old girl. A beautiful, healthy 15-year-old girl who just got snuffed out . . . .”

Jennifer had been skating with two other friends from the neighborhood--one of whom took off her skates to walk down the steep hill. Jennifer’s cousin Katie of Thousand Oaks was riding nearby on her bicycle with another friend when she saw Jennifer lose control.

Family members said the Svobedas visited their Thousand Oaks relatives every summer and nearly every Christmas. They said Jennifer loved the beach, Disneyland, and the trampoline and pool in the back yard of her aunt and uncle, Bob and Joan Ruffino of Thousand Oaks.

But most of all, she loved spending time with her cousins. When her mother, father and three brothers and sisters went home to Georgia on Monday, Jennifer stayed behind to see relatives from Connecticut, who are in Thousand Oaks this week.

She was scheduled to return home next week after spending three weeks in Thousand Oaks. She would have been in 10th grade at Saint Francis High School, where she played sports and was the president of her ninth-grade class.

Katie remembered her cousin as generous and caring, recalling Jennifer’s final moments with her 5-year-old sister Caitlin on Monday. “When they were leaving, Caitlin was upset that Jennifer was staying,” Katie said, her eyes again welled with tears.

“She took off her ring and said to her ‘I want you to take this ring and whenever you look at it, think of me,’ and then she gave it to her.”

Times staff writer Mary Pols contributed to this story.