Couple Injured in Lake Forest Car Bombing

A married couple narrowly escaped death Wednesday night when two pipe bombs concealed underneath their car exploded as they drove through a busy Lake Forest intersection.

Both police and the Coto de Caza couple are baffled at who would sabotage the car.

“We don’t have any money; we live a quiet life. I don’t understand this,” said Santos Carballido, 32, from a bed in his Coto de Caza apartment. “But I’m scared anyway because I don’t know if this guy is going to try again.”

Bomb squad officers plumbed the battered wreck for clues, and an Orange County sheriff’s spokesman said the couple avoided serious injury because the blast “didn’t penetrate directly into the passenger compartment.”

“It will take a while before our hazardous-devices squad can piece things together here,” said Sgt. Dave Remender.

The bombs were situated near the gas tank of the 1986 Pontiac Fiero. Sheriff’s investigators are calling the bombing an attempted murder.

“This is a strange one,” Remender said. “I haven’t seen anything like it in the 15 years I’ve been here.”

Carballido, a computer artist, and his wife, Etelvina Diaz, 35, had purchased the car four months ago from Paul Flockhart, Carballido’s boss at Musashi Publications in Irvine.

Flockhart’s “wife drove the car,” Carballido said, adding that Flockhart “thinks someone tried to blow her up.”

Flockhart could not be reached for comment.

However, his wife, who declined to be further identified, said that through the publishing company “we definitely know someone crazy enough” to bomb the car. She referred other questions to her husband.

Musashi Publications creates advertising flyers and brochures. The Flockharts live about two blocks from Carballido in Coto de Caza.

Carballido and Diaz were a block away from Musashi Publications at 6 p.m. Wednesday when the car blew up at the intersection of Rockfield Boulevard and Lake Forest Drive, which was choked with rush-hour traffic.

“All of a sudden, it just exploded behind me, and I reached for the door,” said Carballido, who was driving. “I looked behind me as I fell out of the car, and I saw smoke and flames.”

Carballido tumbled onto the pavement, then tried to get back up to look for his wife.

“My legs wouldn’t move, and I sank back to the ground,” he said. “It was very frightening.”

Several bystanders rushed to the stricken couple, including a doctor, who covered Carballido and Diaz with a blanket as they waited for police.

“The people were wonderful; everybody was trying to help us,” Diaz said. “We are very grateful to them.”

The husband and wife were taken to Saddleback Memorial Medical Center in Laguna Hills, where they were examined. Carballido said he will return to the hospital this weekend for further treatment.

He is having trouble walking, and his wife complained of ear pain, but the couple still feel lucky to have escaped the bomb blast with relatively minor injuries.

“I don’t know what (the saboteur) wants,” Carballido said. “But I know God was with us.”

Staff writer Leslie Berkman contributed to this story.