An 18-month-old girl who suffered major injuries Wednesday when the car she was riding in backed into the path of an Amtrak train died later at Marian Medical Center, according to the California Highway Patrol.

The driver of the car, identified Friday at Antonia Garcia Ortiz of Santa Maria, was killed instantly at about 4:15 p.m. when the southbound Amtrak slammed into the compact sedan on a private dirt road near Highway 1 and Thornberry Road, at the southern edge of San Luis Obispo County, the CHP reported.

Both Ortiz and the child were ejected from the vehicle, the CHP said.

The train was traveling almost 70 mph when the engineer saw the car move onto the tracks, the CHP said. The train operators blew their horn and applied emergency brakes, but there was not enough time to avoid a collision.

— Noozhawk executive editor Tom Bolton can be reached at tbolton@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.