ORANGE : Friend and Partner Lost to Fiery Crash

From their days together as Pop Warner players until their recent decision to go into business together, Rocco Costello and Craig Gauthier were inseparable.

Last week, Gauthier lost his best friend after a fiery automobile collision in Brea, which seriously injured Gauthier as well.

“He doesn’t want to talk about it,” said Don Gauthier, Craig’s father. “If you mention Rocky, he puts his finger to his mouth, closes his eyes and shakes his head. It’s too painful.”

While other families were preparing for the holidays, the Costellos and the Gauthiers were camped out at the hospital.

Costello, 28, was burned over 95% of his body in the Dec. 15 accident and died last Wednesday morning at the burn unit of UCI Medical Center in Orange. He was buried Saturday in La Mirada.

Gauthier, also 28, remains in stable condition at the burn unit. He received burns over more than 60% of his body.

Gauthier and Costello grew up together in La Mirada, playing on the baseball and football teams at Neff High School, where they graduated in 1979.

Costello, known as Rocky, went on to become a star kicker on football teams at Cerritos College and Fresno State.

“The only thing that I can say is that Rocky was a very special person and evidently God needed a kicker in heaven so he took the best one. He took Rocky,” said his sister, Kelli Costello Blood.

Costello and Gauthier had started a masonry business about a month ago and were driving home from a job in Yorba Linda in rush-hour traffic when the accident occurred.

A Mustang jumped the median of Imperial Highway just east of Valencia Avenue, hitting Costello’s Chevrolet pickup truck and two other vehicles, police said.

Witnesses helped Gauthier crawl from the truck, which exploded in flames, and then pulled Costello from the burning wreckage.

The driver of the Mustang was treated at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana and released.

No charges have been filed and police, who are still investigating the collision, are looking for witnesses. Police have requested that anyone with information call Officer Tom Decker at (714) 990-7625.

Julie Byerley, a longtime friend of both men, has set up a trust fund through the Orange County Burn Assn. to help pay for medical expenses (neither man had health insurance). Sue Martinez, chief nurse of the burn unit, said the cost of treating burn victims is astronomical. The room rates alone in the burn unit are $1,500 to $1,800 per day and that does not include whirlpool baths, dressings, medications or respiratory therapy, she said.

After four to six weeks in the hospital, burn victims must return for outpatient treatment for at least several weeks.

Both men “always had a smile for everyone,” Craig’s father said. “They didn’t have an enemy in the world.”