Families Struggle to Understand Tragedy : Accident: In a city with its share of urban perils, events leading to two deaths defy all rational odds.

They were the best of friends, members of the same church, mothers in the same sprawling apartment complex near Cal State Los Angeles.

Rosalva Gomez and Lourdes Solano often walked together to the small market around the corner on Eastern Avenue, to help each other with the groceries and, as a neighbor recalled, as protection against muggers.

But when the two women went strolling with their daughters last Tuesday along their usual route through the streets of City Terrace in northeast Los Angeles, they fell victim not to violent crime, but to a capricious sort of urban horror equally as devastating.

In an instant, Gomez, 26, and her friend’s daughter, 11-year-old Lisa Solano, were killed by a freak accident. A construction boom hauled on the back of a truck swung free as the vehicle rounded a curve on Eastern Avenue, snapping a 65-foot-tall power pole like a matchstick and showering heavy pieces of wood and high-voltage power lines on the unsuspecting victims below.

On Thursday, the two families kept vigil for those who survived: Rosalva Gomez’s 5-month-old daughter, Jessica, hospitalized in extremely critical condition at County-USC Medical Center, and Lourdes Solano, in serious condition with severe head injuries at the same hospital. As relatives waited and prayed, they also mourned for their dead, trying to find some kind of solace in a tragedy that defied explanation.

“You worry about your children being shot or robbed, not about something like this happening,” said Lourdes Solano’s father, Mario, 57. He said his family was still “waiting for the right moment” to tell Lourdes about her daughter’s death.

Francisco Laba, husband of Rosalva Gomez, was caught between making arrangements for his wife’s funeral and visiting his 5-month-old daughter, Jessica. Laba, too, had more questions than answers.

“I ask myself why this had to happen,” the 25-year-old auto mechanic said in Spanish, as he stared at a framed photograph of his wife and child on the kitchen table. Hanging on the wall above the table was a framed poster of Jesus Christ.

Family and friends said that before the accident, Gomez had set out for the market with Jessica in her arms. Solano had gone to meet Lisa, a fourth-grader at City Terrace Elementary School, at a nearby bus stop. Solano never liked for her daughter to walk home from school alone, neighbors said.

At some point along the route, the two friends, joined by Lisa, met and headed back together toward the Woodbridge Village apartments where they lived. As they neared the Eastern Avenue curve, the older women walked in front, with Lisa, now carrying the baby, a few feet behind.

None of them apparently noticed the truck approach from the rear, authorities said. CHP officials said later that the truck was going no more than 25 m.p.h. But as the vehicle rounded the curve, the boom on the 26,000-pound rig tipped to the right, triggering the deadly events.

Witnesses said that in the first few minutes after the accident, they were unable to get past the live high-voltage lines to help the victims. Authorities said the impact of the fallen pole killed Lisa Solano instantly. Gomez died en route to County-USC.

On Thursday, as he kept vigil at the hospital, Francisco Laba phoned friends and work mates in an effort to raise money to transport his wife’s body back to her native Mexico.

“I know she would want to be buried in Zacatecas,” he said of Rosalva, whom he met 3 1/2 years ago at a dance in El Monte, not long after she moved here from the Mexican city. They were married four months later, he said.

Neighbors described Gomez as a devoted mother whose life seemed centered on her family and a few close friends.

“Her child was the pride of her life,” said Maria Godfrey, a neighbor. Godfrey said she often spoke with Gomez as the two women did their laundry at the apartment complex. “Like many people here, they had it rough financially. She would always say she wanted something better for her baby.”

Gomez and Solano apparently became friends after Solano moved to the apartments with Lisa and her other daughter, Jeanette, 6, last year. Solano had left Jeanette with a neighbor before going to meet Lisa on Tuesday, they said.

Both women regularly attended Santa Lucia Catholic Church, where Lisa took her first Communion just two weeks ago.

“She was so thrilled about that, and about the new dress she was wearing,” said George Lopez, a family friend and Lisa’s godfather. “She was a wonderful little girl who had a special way with people.”

Ianthe Byrd, Lisa’s fourth-grade teacher, said that last month, during Teacher Appreciation Day at the school, Lisa came to class with a gold-tone necklace that her mother had helped her pick out as a gift for the teacher.

“Knowing that they aren’t rich people, I can’t tell you how I was moved by that,” Byrd said. “But that was just Lisa. Giving me the necklace meant the world to her.”

On Thursday, a three-man crew dug what was left of the splintered utility pole out of the ground and hauled it away. A spokesman for the California Highway Patrol said the accident was still under investigation. Authorities will probably decide next week whether to recommend that manslaughter charges be filed against the driver of the truck, Rodolfo Olivas, 54, of Los Angeles.

“A lot depends on whether we determine that the boom came loose because of mechanical failure or if it wasn’t secured properly,” CHP Officer Ruben Martinez said.