7 Members of Family Struck by Errant Car : Accident: The driver flees after plowing into the pedestrians, pinning a 16-year-old boy against a house and severing his leg and knocking the others down.

Seven members of a family out for a walk Monday were struck by a car that jumped the curb, pinning a 16-year-old against a house and severing his leg, and leaving the other six strewn across a lawn.

The car also sent a chest of drawers in the house crashing into a playpen where a baby had been playing moments before. The driver of the car, believed to be a man who lives next door to the house, fled on foot and remained at large Monday night, police said.

Jose Viramontes, 16, of Anaheim was airlifted to UCI Medical Center in Orange where he was reported in critical condition Monday night.

Police said one of the family members was pregnant, but she suffered only minor injuries.

The accident took place at 2:48 p.m. as the family was walking on Wilhelmina Street. Witnesses said that a late 1970s gray Lincoln was heading north on Olive Avenue and that the driver seemed to lose control as he apparently tried to turn left at Wilhelmina, Police Sgt. Harold Parkison said. The car jumped the curb, knocked down a pole, plowed into the family and pinned Viramontes against the wall at 325 W. Wilhelmina, Parkison said.

Anaheim Police Sgt. Tom O’Donnell, the first officer to arrive at the scene, said neighbors and witnesses were trying to push the car away from the house in an attempt to free Viramontes. When that failed, some neighbors attached a chain to the back of a pickup truck and, with the help of officers, pulled the Lincoln away.

“The whole crowd just grasped with horror” when they saw the teen-ager, O’Donnell said.

The injured youth “was in deep shock and was non-responsive to our questioning. His eyes just blinked,” O’Donnell said. “It was the worst accident sight I’ve ever seen where the victim was still alive.”

Anthony Garcia, an 18-year-old student, said he was in his house across the street when he heard the crash and ran out to help the pinned youth.

“He was just standing there, looking like he didn’t know what had happened,” Garcia said. “Then he just passed out. The others were just laying on the ground screaming and then (a) lady passed out. The guy who hit them, he tried to get the car into reverse, but when he couldn’t, he just left.”

Jerry Martinez, a 17-year-old high school student, said he was walking on Olive about half a block south of the accident scene when the car passed him going about 40 m.p.h.

He said he saw the car jump the curb and strike the pole, but it wasn’t until he reached the scene that he saw the family.

“I guess he lost control because I saw him smack into that pole,” Martinez said.

Jesus Fernandez, 27, a relative of the injured family, said he arrived at the scene moments after the accident. The victims told him that they were walking on the sidewalk and did not see the car until it crashed into them, he said.

“When I got here, my cousin was pinned against the house and all of the kids were thrown out of the way,” he related. “They said they didn’t even see or hear the car coming.”

Inside the house, Elvira Cu, 19, said she had just gone into the bedroom to check on her crying 7-month-old daughter, Elizabeth Monroy. Through an interpreter, she said she picked up the baby from the playpen and was walking into the living room when the wall behind her crashed in, toppling a chest of drawers which slammed the playpen into the bed. Neither the woman nor her child was injured.

The crash left a hole a foot high and 6 feet wide in the outside wall about 2 feet off the ground.

A two-hour search, first by Anaheim police and then by an Orange County Sheriff’s Department bloodhound team failed to locate the driver. O’Donnell said police were not staking out the house Monday night because they did not think that he would return but probably was headed for Mexico.

A helicopter landed on East Wilhelmina Street and flew the injured teen-ager to UCI Medical Center. His mother, Mercedes Viramontes, 54, and relatives Veronica Viramontes, 13, and Maria Navarro, 20, were taken to Martin Luther Hospital in Anaheim and treated for minor injuries, police said. Police did not say which of the victims was pregnant. The others, Maria Carillo, 51, Christina Navarro, 8, and Margarita Navarro, 7, were not injured. All were from Anaheim, police said.

The car was registered to a resident of the house next door to the accident, investigators said. The people at the house were home and witnessed the accident, police added, but they declined to comment on the accident or identify the driver.