5-Year-Old Victim of Drunk Driver Battles Back From the Brink

Five-year-old John Almanza remembers little about the accident that nearly killed him.

On Aug. 11, he was skateboarding in an alley behind his parents’ condominium when a drunk driver, going at least 60 mph, struck him and fled.

The boy’s mother, Jacy, 33, was working in their garage when she heard her husband, Miguel, 41, yelling to the driver to stop.

“My husband saw the car hit him and said it struck him in the stomach and he smashed his face against the car’s hood,” she said. “He was thrown 30 feet.”

Friends and neighbors have rallied around John, first with prayer when he was in a coma, and then with a fund-raiser to help pay medical bills that his parents’ insurance didn’t cover.

“We only raised $450, but we try to take care of people from our community,” said neighbor Janice Palermo, who helped organize the fund-raiser at the Capistrano Villas, a large condominium complex.

John’s recovery has been a struggle.

Initially, he was taken to Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center with a fractured nose, a broken bone above his right eye and pressure on the brain from internal bleeding.

John’s mother said that he was unconscious for five days, opening his eyes at times but failing to recognize the family.

On her birthday, Aug. 17, she asked him: “Do you know me? Do you know who I am?” She said she wanted him to speak, to give the family and doctors some hope.

John opened his eyes and slowly responded, she said. “He said, ‘Bortho, bortho.’ I think he was saying, ‘Brother,’ saying hello to his brother, Nestor.” But it was a positive sign. Soon, he was jabbering to his mother in English and Spanish.

A brain scan revealed a blood clot that would require surgery, but the Almanzas decided to wait to see if the interior pressure would relieve itself with medication. Several days later, the pressure was reduced and he was soon allowed to go home.

John’s physical activity, such as riding his bicycle, has been limited and he often yelps in pain when he runs because his head hurts. “He can’t go to school and he has to wear a helmet when he goes outside to protect him in case he falls,” said his mother, a beautician in Mission Viejo.

Ernesto Ayala of San Juan Capistrano was arrested in the case after he crashed into a vehicle several miles away after hitting John, said Orange County Sheriff’s Lt. Ron Wilkerson.

Ayala pleaded guilty to felony drunk driving, assault with a deadly weapon when he attempted to hit John’s father, and hit and run, Wilkerson said. He was sentenced to two years in prison.