Crash Kills Woman in Labor and Unborn Baby : Accident: The victim was being taken to a hospital in a van that hit a parked truck trailer. Police blame fogged windshield.

A woman who was in labor died Monday when the van taking her to the hospital crashed into a parked truck trailer, police said.

The unborn child, a girl, also died in the collision.

The driver, Sergio Refugio Chamu, 23, was taking Ana Lilia Serrato, 20, of Santa Ana and her sister to Coastal Communities Hospital about 6:50 a.m. when the crash occurred in the 1400 block of West Warner Avenue, Lt. Bob Chavez said.

“For some unknown reason, the driver did not use the window defogger, and his vision was obstructed,” Chavez said. Chamu had just accelerated from a stop light at Warner and Pacific avenues and was heading east.

Chamu did not see a semitrailer truck parked on the south side of Warner and drove into the rear of the trailer, Chavez said. Serrato, who was in the passenger seat wearing a seat belt, suffered fatal injuries.

“She was still alive after we crashed,” her sister, Alicia Laura Serrato, 24, said at home Monday night with tears rolling down her bruised face. “I reached down, touched her neck and felt her heartbeat, but she wouldn’t respond when I called her name.”

Serrato was pronounced dead at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana shortly after the accident.

Chamu, a relative of the women, and Alicia Serrato, who was not wearing a seat belt, both suffered minor injuries.

Alicia Serrato said she and Ana had left their family in Guerrero, Mexico, only three months apart. Ana Serrato left first, a year and a half ago, to work in the United States but could not find a job. Alicia Serrato arrived three months later with her young children, and Ana took care of the children while her sister went to work.

During her pregnancy, which was her first, Ana became hooked on Spanish-language soap operas, her sister said.

“She loved to watch television, that was her hobby,” said Alicia Serrato, with a tiny smile.

Alicia said her sister began to feel labor pains about 5 a.m. Monday. The last words Ana said to her sister were said in pain.

“She asked me what she should take to the hospital and I told her you don’t have to bring anything, and then Ana said, ‘Well, let’s go then because I can’t stand the pain anymore.’ ”

Ana Serrato, who was single, had planned to name the baby Bianca, her sister said.

“She was a good person. Although she had a certain character and I have a different character, she was still a good person.”

Ana will be buried in her hometown in Mexico.