Sisters Killed in Pomona Freeway Hit-and-Run

Two sisters described as “always together” were killed and a friend injured as they walked along a freeway lane early Sunday to help at an accident scene.

Authorities said Fabiola and Laura Gudino and Pedro Hernandez were struck shortly before 2 a.m. by a hit-and-run driver who swerved to avoid a Toyota sports-utility vehicle that had rolled over in the westbound lanes of the Pomona Freeway near Atlantic Boulevard.

The three were returning from a party with another friend when they stopped their car near the overturned vehicle and got out to offer assistance.

All three were thrown when they were hit by the driver of a subcompact, which then veered into the center dividing wall, sideswiped Hernandez’s Thunderbird and fled the scene, according to the California Highway Patrol.

“They were always together,” the Gudinos’ older sister, Lorena Rubio, said of her siblings Sunday afternoon as she stood, red-eyed, in front of the family home in Florence, an unincorporated section of the county next to South-Central Los Angeles.

All three of the sisters worked as teacher aides at 49th Street Elementary School. Laura, 21, was majoring in education at Cal State L.A., and Fabiola, 18, had just started at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College.

Friends described the sisters as likable and outgoing and were not surprised they were acting as good Samaritans. They were “always the ones to want to cheer you up,” Elias Garcia said.

Rubio lives nearby in an apartment with her husband, and the sisters lived with their mother and 10-year-old brother. “Life was good,” Rubio said sadly.

Hernandez, a 24-year-old Lynwood resident, was in stable condition Sunday at Los Angeles County USC Medical Center, where he was awaiting surgery. Rubio said the three had designated another friend as the driver of Hernandez’s car. She was not hurt.

Some of the four people in the overturned Toyota sustained minor injuries, a Highway Patrol spokesman said. The driver of that vehicle fled the scene on foot.

Sunday’s accident was the latest of several recent hit-and-run incidents.

A woman and her 10-month-old daughter were hurt last week when a motorist struck them in the San Fernando Valley. The suspect, a veteran Los Angeles police officer, committed suicide Friday after being confronted by investigators.

In Ventura, a man cited five times in seven months for traffic violations was arrested last week in the death of a woman who was walking her dogs when he allegedly ran into her--and kept driving.

Earlier this month, an 87-year-old woman in Hollywood was fatally injured in a hit-and-run as she carried a bag of groceries across Santa Monica Boulevard.