Premed Student on Way to Help Patients in Baja Dies After Crash : Accident: Other students accompanying her battled to save her, but a lack of medical facilities in the border area may have hindered their efforts.

In the way that parents do, her father had warned her repeatedly about traveling to Mexico.

“Don’t go down there,” he would say. “The roads are dangerous.”

But Rosemarie Maldonado, 21, a promising UC Irvine premed student, always went anyway.

Maldonado died Saturday after the vehicle she was in tumbled down an embankment near the Baja California border town of Tecate, her family said Monday. She and a group of friends, part of a students’ group known as the Flying Samaritans, had gone to Mexico to participate in a medical clinic at El Testorazo, about 27 miles south of the border.

“My sister’s whole life was planned for a medical career,” said Mary Alice Maldonado, 29, of Santa Ana. “She was a volunteer at convalescent homes since she was in grade school and although my father always warned her about how dangerous Mexico is, she would always go with the Flying Samaritans to Mexico.

“It’s ironic that she was going down to provide the medical services that Mexico needs and finds herself a victim.”

A spokesman for the San Diego County coroner’s office said the driver of the vehicle, Kelly Brae, another UCI premed student, apparently hit loose sand on the paved road, tried to brake and lost control of the vehicle.

Maldonado, who was not wearing a seat belt, was one of two students thrown from the vehicle, a coroner’s spokesman said. The other student, Amanda Fox, was treated and released Monday from University Hospital in San Diego after being airlifted there by a Sheriff’s Department helicopter.

The vehicle was carrying five students, including Fox and Maldonado.

Michael Farner, 21, a UCI premed student who was in another car when the accident happened, said the victims were taken to a clinic in Tecate in the back of a pickup truck.

Both victims were later transported to a second clinic because the first did not have the capability to treat Maldonado’s injuries, Farner said.

“They had a doctor at the second clinic, but she was suffering from multiple blunt trauma and needed surgeons and a whole team of doctors,” said Farner, who then made arrangements to take her to the border entry point in Tecate, where she could be airlifted to a San Diego hospital.

“We wanted to make arrangements for a life flight so the helicopter would land on the U.S. side. But the helicopter didn’t come because it was fogged in at the San Diego airport,” Farner said.

Despite the efforts of Farner and other students, who administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation to Maldonado while at the border, she was pronounced dead at 2:46 p.m. Saturday, according to the coroner’s report.

“There are really two tragedies here,” said the victim’s sister, Mary Alice. “One is the death of Rosemarie and the other is the lack of medical services (in Mexico). That’s our biggest frustration.”

The San Diego office of the Mexican Consulate was closed Monday and no government spokesperson could be reached for comment.

Farner said that efforts were under way to win the release of Brae, who was being held by the Mexican judicial police in Tecate because she drove the vehicle involved in the crash.

Maldonado had served with the Flying Samaritans for more than three years. She was fluent in Spanish and served as an interpreter at the monthly medical clinics in the small town of El Testorazo.

Her family and friends were devastated by the loss, her sister said. Maldonado was entering her senior year and was an honor student.

“She was planning on interviews with both Harvard and the University of San Francisco med schools. It has hit my parents hard. To think that my little sister had the potential to go to someplace like Harvard Medical School,” said Mary Alice.

A rosary is scheduled for today at 6 p.m. at Fairhaven Mortuary in Santa Ana. A memorial Mass is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Santa Ana, with burial in Fairhaven Memorial Park.

Maldonado is survived by her parents, David and Alicia Maldonado of Santa Ana; two brothers, Ed Olivares and Leonard Maldonado; two sisters, Mary Carmen Raasch and Mary Alice Maldonado, and two nephews.