2 Sisters Struck by Drunk Driver, Police Allege

Two Buena Park sisters walking to elementary school were struck on the sidewalk and thrown 25 feet Tuesday morning by a driver too drunk to take a field sobriety test, police said.

The impact threw Rieko Nakano, 10, and Maiko Nakano, 12, onto the front lawn of a home, police said. Although seriously injured, both were improving Tuesday night at UCI Medical Center.

The driver, Alfonso Kraft Valadez, 53, of Buena Park, was booked into Orange County Jail on suspicion of felony drunk driving, said Officer Terry Branum, Buena Park police spokesman. Bail was set at $25,000.

Valadez was convicted more than two years ago of misdemeanor drunk driving, state Department of Motor Vehicles records show.

The two girls were walking on 9th Street near Gramercy Street in Buena Park on their way to Gilbert Elementary School at 8:50 a.m.

Valadez, driving west on 9th Street, lost control of his car and struck a curb, a palm tree and then a guide wire running from a telephone pole to the ground, Branum said.

Valadez’s car flipped, striking the two girls, and “eventually came to a rest against a parked car,” Branum said.

Valadez had been driving between 30 and 35 m.p.h. in a 25-m.p.h. zone, police said.

He was not injured but “was highly intoxicated--so intoxicated that (arresting officers) were unable to give him a field sobriety test: having him touch his nose, walking a line,” Branum said.

He said Valadez also had alcohol in the car.

“A blood-alcohol test was done, but I’m not at liberty to say what it was,” Buena Park Police Lt. Tony Kelly said. “But I can tell you that, based on that (test), he was certainly booked. If that tells you anything.”

According to DMV records, Valadez, whose occupation was not immediately known, was convicted of misdemeanor drunk driving on Dec. 12, 1984, in West Orange County Municipal Court in Westminster.

Another source said Valadez had just recently been released from probation for the conviction.

The Nakano sisters both suffered leg injuries and other cuts and bruises.

“This came so close to being a real tragedy,” Kelly said. “They apparently don’t have any disfiguring injuries, but they do have some broken parts.”