4 Girls Recovering After Car Ran Over Them : Accident: No permanent damage foreseen for five children hurt in freak incident. Father says vehicle was not left unattended with his son inside.

Four girls who were injured in a freak accident Saturday when a car left with its motor running was put in drive by a toddler were improving rapidly Sunday.

Hospital officials said they now foresee no permanent damage to any of the five children, all under 10, who were run over by a 1984 Thunderbird in the driveway of a four-unit apartment in North Hollywood as they sat beside the porch.

Officials at Childrens Hospital and UCLA Medical Center upgraded the condition of the three most seriously injured victims--all girls--from critical to fair Sunday, and two of them were expected to be released today.

A fourth girl was upgraded from serious to fair Saturday. A boy hit by the car was released Sunday with minor injuries.

Meanwhile, the father of the 2-year-old boy who shifted the gear lever from park to drive said his son was not left unattended in the car as reported earlier.

Marcos Antonio Garcia said his wife, Estela Lopez, left the car unoccupied when she went back into the apartment to get her purse. The boy opened the driver’s door himself, got in and engaged the power door-locks before setting the car in motion, Garcia said.

The car moved forward, striking the children in the driveway.

Lopez, eight months pregnant, ran into the street screaming for help.

Neighbors in the densely populated block of Agnes Avenue rushed at the sound of the woman’s cries and the shrieks of the trapped and injured children, and, in a dramatic rescue, lifted the front end of the car off the ground with the engine still running, to pull the children to safety.

Relatives of the five children--three siblings and two cousins--gathered at the two hospitals Sunday.

“She’s traumatized,” said Maria Pena of her 9-year-old niece Valeria Fernandez. “The first thing that came out of her was, ‘I thought I was going to die.’

“She was telling me how awful it was to have the tire on her chest, not able to breathe,” Pena said.

Pena said Valeria was bruised and swollen, and that the child also thought she was going to lose her arm.

“She asked my sister, ‘Do I still have any arm? I can’t feel it.’ ” A spokesman for Childrens Hospital said Valeria had a broken right arm and a broken collar bone, and that the other patient, Janet Rodriguez, 10, was still being examined to determine whether her right ankle was broken.

Fernandez and Rodriguez were released from the intensive care unit at Childrens Hospital on Sunday. Rodriguez, who suffered a bruised heart in the accident, was upgraded to good condition, said Kathleen Stevenson, a nursing supervisor. Fernandez’ condition was upgraded to fair, she said.

Gregg Bruschaber, a clinical social worker, said at a news conference that doctors told him the girls’ condition was “better than fair.” The initial diagnosis of critical was based on the nature of the accident and early indications of head trauma, but that it was later determined that their injuries were not life-threatening, he said.

Other family members at Childrens Hospital declined to speak to reporters, Bruschaber said.

At UCLA Medical Center, Guadalupe Rodriguez, 9, and Leslie Vega, 5, were also reported in fair condition. Vega, who was treated for a “crush injury” to the chest, was upgraded from serious to fair Sunday morning. Guadalupe, Janet’s younger sister, had multiple abrasions and a large laceration on her left leg. She remained in fair condition.

Just before driving a van full of the victims’ relatives to UCLA Sunday afternoon, Garcia recalled the previous day’s incident. He said he had asked his wife to warm up the car, which was parked head-in in the driveway next to the bungalow-style apartment. After Lopez returned to the house, Garcia said, his son, Osvaldo, opened the driver’s side door and got in.

The five children were gathered near the stoop of the apartment next to Garcia’s unit.

Garcia said he ran when he heard the screams, but could not open the door, and then went to find a set of keys.

By the time he got the door open, he said, about 15 neighbors had arrived. Worried that the children under the car would get their arms crushed in the moving machinery, they lifted the car by hand and propped it on a car jack and a wood plank.

One of the rescuers, Juan Torres, said they moved the children to the side and then waited for paramedics to arrive.

Police said they did not expect to charge Lopez.

That angered Pena, the guardian of Valeria, who said she had brought the girl from her home in Pacoima for a visit Saturday.

“I felt there was no justice,” Pena said. “She’s still out there.”

But neighbors who helped rescue the children said they blamed no one and sympathized with Lopez.

Doug Smith is a Times staff writer and Antonio Olivo is a correspondent.