4 Pedestrians Struck; 2 Critical : Accident: The driver of the car, suspected of being drunk, was arrested after he was involved in a second crash nearby. The pedestrians were hit in a crosswalk.

A suspected drunk driver rammed his car into four pedestrians in a crosswalk Monday, dragging one of them for nearly 300 feet before he crashed into another vehicle and was captured by bystanders, police said.

Two of the pedestrians were critically injured when the suspect, identified as Ciriaco Mendoza, 46, of Costa Mesa, drove up onto a sidewalk to pass cars stopped for a red light at a busy intersection and slammed into the victims, Police Lt. Alan Kent said.

One of the victims, Samuel Chavez Vasquez, 16, of Costa Mesa, said in an interview:

“I couldn’t see it coming. I was walking across the street and a car came at me. I can remember it pushing me, (but) I can’t remember anything else except that I was hurt.”

Vasquez, who spoke through an interpreter, was listed in stable condition at Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo with a broken thumb and a dislocated right knee.

“He didn’t stop, didn’t even brake,” said Dan Sutton, 30, of Westminster, who was stopped at a red light when the accident occurred. “It was pretty damn cold-blooded. . . . It was bad. I saw one body fly up in the air.”

At least six empty beer cans were found on the floor of the front seat of the 1984 Pontiac Phoenix that Mendoza was driving, and witnesses said there was an odor of alcohol about him. Police arrested Mendoza on suspicion of felony hit-and-run and driving under the influence of alcohol.

According to police, Mendoza had been arrested for investigation of drunk driving in 1987 and misdemeanor hit-and-run driving in 1988. Both arrests occurred in Costa Mesa.

Monday’s crash occurred about 11:35 a.m. when Mendoza apparently grazed a red Mercury sedan that was waiting at a stoplight in the slow lane of westbound Placentia Avenue, Kent said. Mendoza swerved onto the sidewalk to get around the cars stopped ahead of him and accelerated through the intersection, Kent added.

Police said that when Mendoza crossed

19th Street, he apparently swerved to avoid a southbound vehicle and then, traveling about 45 to 50 m.p.h., hit the four pedestrians.

Police identified the other three victims as Luis Payno Rodriguez, 24, of Costa Mesa, who was flown by helicopter to Mission Hospital in extremely critical condition with head injuries and internal bleeding; Ramos Sosa Mardocheo, 23, of Costa Mesa, who was listed in fair condition at UCI Medical Center in Orange with head and lip cuts, and Oscar Zacarias Arellanos, 35, of Costa Mesa, who was taken to Western Medical Center-Santa Ana in critical condition with undetermined injuries.

About 200 yards of Placentia Avenue were roped off for about three hours south of 19th Street as police investigated the scene of the accident. Green spray paint outlined the areas where the four pedestrians had fallen. The intersection has a lot of pedestrian traffic because of day laborers looking for work and because of a nearby shopping center.

According to police, the four victims were walking about 10 feet from the southeast corner of the intersection when they were struck. Groceries, which one of the four had been carrying, were scattered all over the street.

Matthew Bieser, 30, of Costa Mesa said he was eating lunch at a nearby hamburger stand when he heard “several loud thuds . . . looked up and saw the bodies in the street.”

“I jumped in my vehicle, pursued (the suspect’s) vehicle to make sure he wasn’t going to get away with it,” he said.

Bieser followed Mendoza down Placentia Avenue to 16th Street, where the suspect’s car crashed into a Chevrolet pickup that was in the left-turn lane on west 16th Street.

Bieser, with the help of the two men in the pickup truck, detained Mendoza.

Russ Lang, 28, of Costa Mesa, who was a passenger in the truck driven by his father, Bill Lang, 69, also of Costa Mesa, said that after the collision, Mendoza got out of the car and tried to flee.

“I grabbed him and pushed him back into the car,” Lang said. “He tried to get away from me and he knuckled up like he was going to hit somebody, but my dad grabbed his hand and we held him here until an off-duty cop came by.”

Neither Lang nor his father was injured.

HIT-AND-RUN SCENE

1. A suspected drunk driver in a Pontiac hits the right side of a sedan that was stopped for a red light at the intersection of 19th Street and Placentia Avenue.

2. Suspect drives up on the sidewalk and accelerates southbound through the intersection, hitting four pedestrians crossing Placentia from southeast corner. One victim is dragged nearly 300 feet.

3. Suspect crashes into a pickup stopped at a red light in left-turn lane of 16th Street at Placentia. Bystanders detain suspect until police arrive.

Times staff writer James M. Gomez and correspondent Frank Messina contributed to this report.