A Close-Up Look at People Who Matter : Despite Losses, Disabled Man Stays Upbeat

When his head split in six places in a freakish dirt-bike accident nine years ago, by all odds, Chilo Hidalgo Jr. should have died.

For everything he lost that day--a natural athletic talent, the normal life of a teen-ager, a bright future--Hidalgo should be angry, bitter and resentful, at the very least.

But Hidalgo, 23--who uses a devilish sense of humor to cheer up the grumpy commuters he meets each morning as he waits for the bus in his wheelchair--says, “I’m happy.”

Wearing one of his many baseball hats, and a shirt and a tie, Hidalgo has become a fixture at the bus stop at Wilbur Avenue and Saticoy Street in Reseda, where he picks up the Route 169 bus at 8:40 a.m. If he is missing, regular passersby he waves to every day check on him at home to make sure he’s OK.

“He’s got a heart as big as L.A., all the positive qualities we all wish we had,” said Bob Dryer, an actor who lives in Hidalgo’s neighborhood and befriended him five years ago. “You fall in love with him.”

Anyone riding the bus with Hidalgo can expect to be prodded and teased, said Lincoln Osborn, a living skills coach with the Easter Seals Society.

Osborn goes to Hidalgo’s home every morning. Together, they board the bus and Osborn takes Hidalgo to a volunteer job watering grass at a convalescent hospital, or on excursions.

“Chilo is too friendly with people sometimes,” said his grandmother, Betty Higgins, with whom he lives. “He wants everybody to know his name and everyone else to know his.”

Most who meet Hidalgo realize quickly how extraordinary he is.

“He actually makes people’s days better,” Osborn said. “You can understand the strength this person has. I can’t see myself how I would handle something like that. He has a tremendous will to live.”

A deep Christian faith has been a key to surviving the accident and other tragedies, Hidalgo said. Three months before the motorcycle accident, he found his stepfather slain. His mother is now suffering from a spinal condition that will eventually put her in a wheelchair too. “I’m not going to get in one until you get out of yours,” she has promised him.

Before the accident, Hidalgo was a 14-year-old freshman--and an admitted daredevil--at Cleveland High School. Ten years of soccer had given him a quick speed he used as a wide receiver in football. Natural good looks had also earned him roles in television commercials.

“There wasn’t a sport he couldn’t play, or a girl who didn’t like him,” said his mother, Louise Lopez.

On Jan. 4, 1986, Hidalgo was wearing a helmet when his dirt bike hit a bump and flipped him up in the air. The impact to his head rendered his face misshapen and unrecognizable. He was in a coma for three months.

Through his slow, painful recovery, Hidalgo has recently learned to walk again. Two months ago, using a cane to help pull along the paralyzed right side of his body, he walked into his church. He plans to walk 15 minutes a day starting next week.

Through everything, his often silly sense of humor has remained intact. “He was always a little joker, a great personality,” said his mother. “I’m glad that wasn’t taken from him.”

Hidalgo has pushed that sense of humor to some odd extremes, according to Bob Dryer, who watched in nervous silence as Hidalgo played an old, harmless prank with some “bad dudes” in a restaurant.

Another time, Hidalgo pretended to be an alcoholic in an attempt to make friends at a local Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Both times, the victims of his jokes just laughed.

“It’s always an adventure with Chilo,” Dryer said.

Hidalgo often does the unexpected, like giving away a tape of his favorite oldies music to a visitor who showed a casual interest in his music collection.

It all has a purpose, however. After waking up from his coma, he told his grandmother that God told him he was saved for a reason.

But, he added: “It’s a secret.”

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