Local News in Brief : Driver, 9, Out of Hospital

A 9-year-old Gardena boy who took his father’s car and led police on a 3-mile, 100-m.p.h. chase until he crashed into another car, killing the driver, was released from the hospital Thursday.

With a cast on his fractured left leg and scratches on his face, the chubby brown-haired boy, whose name was not released because of his age, held his mother’s hand as he was wheeled out of Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center.

Gardena police will refer the case to the district attorney’s office today for consideration of vehicular manslaughter, evading arrest and felony reckless driving charges, Lt. Phil Shepherd said.

Killed in the early Wednesday morning accident was Bobby N. Colvin, 36, of Los Angeles, an automobile mechanic whose car was broadsided on Imperial Highway at Normandie Avenue as he was returning home after visiting his mother. Colvin, a father of four, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police pulled the boy from the wreckage of his father’s 1972 Buick as it burst into flames.

“It’s a miracle he lived through it,” said the boy’s father, who declined to answer questions about the incident. “I just feel sorry for the other guy.”

The boy, who wore a Snoopy T-shirt, did not want to talk about the incident.