No Escape From Tragedy : Freeways: Christine Kattar and her family left war-ravaged Beirut to seek safety in the United States. But she was fatally injured last week in a hit-and-run accident.

After dodging bombs for years in war-torn Beirut, Christine Kattar and her family moved to Los Angeles two years ago, believing they were safe at last.

But the 20-year-old Pasadena City College student and dental office worker lost her life after being injured Oct. 26 in an all-too-common Southern California event, a hit-and-run accident. As Kattar rode to a surprise party, holding a gift in her lap, a white car slammed into her boyfriend’s Toyota on the Long Beach (710) Freeway in Monterey Park, then sped off.

Paralyzed from the neck down, she had spent the days after the accident in County-USC Medical Center.

“When she first heard she might not be able to walk, she asked the doctor to end her life,” Kattar’s father, George, said. “But the second day, when we came to visit, she begged us not to let her lose faith.”

But even as the family members steeled themselves for what they expected to be a long and difficult rehabilitation, Christine Kattar died unexpectedly at the hospital last Saturday afternoon.

“They’re devastated,” said Martin Richardson, a family friend. “She was so full of life.”

The young woman’s death added urgency to the California’s Highway Patrol’s search for the hit-and-run driver.

“Before, it was major injuries,” Officer Lou Gutierrez said. “Now we’re looking for someone who killed her.”

Family members, who reside in the Monterey Hills area near South Pasadena, declined comment.

But the day before Kattar’s death, they talked about the accident, hoping the publicity would help investigators find witnesses and lead to an arrest.

“We don’t want the person to do it to other people,” George Kattar said.

As he reflected on his daughter’s injuries, Kattar, who ran a Beirut clothing store that was twice destroyed by bombs, wondered whether his family ever should have left their homeland.

“We survived 15 years of shells falling near us,” he said. “We spent many nights in a shelter, sleeping in the basement of the building, all huddled together.”

“Everybody encouraged us to leave the country,” his daughter, Danielle Kattar, 22, added. “They said it would be safer here.”

The family escaped in a daring nighttime boat ride to Nicosia, Cyprus, sailing without lights to avoid detection. The Kattars joined relatives who had relocated earlier to Southern California.

“It was going very fine,” George Kattar said. “That’s why I think we had this misfortune--because it was too perfect here.

“It was too perfect to be true.”

The accident occurred at about 6:30 p.m. Oct. 26, as Christine’s boyfriend, Namir Shmara, 27, of Alhambra, was driving to a party in Hacienda Heights. She was writing a card to accompany her gift when Shmara’s red 1983 Celica was sideswiped by another car that had just entered the freeway.

“I saw the person coming,” Shmara recalled. “He was out of control. It was raining. I tried to avoid him. I remember he hit us on the passenger side. His car should be damaged on his driver’s side--all along the car.”

Shmara said it appeared to be a large white two-door American car, possibly an Oldsmobile or a Chevrolet.

“The fact that he took off--it’s irresponsible and unacceptable,” he said.

After the collision, Shmara and Kattar were rushed to the hospital.

“She woke up and said, ‘Namir, this is a bad dream. We’re going to wake up from this, aren’t we?’ ” he recalled.

The woman’s family hurried to the hospital.

“When I first saw her,” George Kattar said, “the first two words she said were, ‘Sorry, Dad,’ because she realized what a mess she had put herself in.”

The family had no medical insurance. And Shmara, who was cut on the head, did not have auto insurance to cover the treatment of an injured passenger.

The family applied for state aid, and a fund was set up at Holy Family Roman Catholic Church in South Pasadena to help defray the costs.

In the days after the accident, family members said, Christine Kattar tried to maintain an upbeat attitude, looking forward to an operation that, her doctors said, might restore movement to her hands. She was adamant about keeping up with her college assignments, asking her sister to do the writing for her.

“She has good spirits,” Danielle Kattar said on Friday, the day before her sister died. “She knows we are desperate, and she’s trying to make us feel OK.”

“We need a miracle, that’s all,” her father added.

The cause of Kattar’s death was under investigation by the coroner’s office.

Meanwhile, traffic investigators were urging witnesses to the accident to contact the Highway Patrol’s Montebello office at (213) 724-5150.

A Rosary for Christine Kattar will be recited at 7:30 p.m. today at Forest Lawn Memorial-Park, Hollywood Hills. The funeral will be at 9:30 a.m. Friday at Holy Family Roman Catholic Church, 1501 Fremont Ave., South Pasadena.