Hotel Resident, 21, in Critical Condition After Fall From Window

A 21-year-old man was in critical condition Monday with a broken back and severe head injuries after he fell out of a second-story window at a downtown hotel, authorities said.

The victim appeared to have been drinking and taking drugs, including Valium and Soma, before the 5 p.m. accident at the Mission Hotel, 87 S. Oak St., said Chief Glenn True of the Ventura City Fire Department.

“He was pretty well inebriated with all this stuff on board,” True said. “Who knows, maybe he thought he could fly.”

Friends and the hotel manager identified the victim as Gary Shawgo, who had been renting a $145-per-week room with his parents, Gary Shawgo Sr. and Linda Shawgo, for the past four months.

“Gary and his parents have never been any trouble,” manager Bruce Kearn said. “They’ve been good tenants and have always paid their rent on time.”

Outside the 30-room hotel after the accident Monday, two of Shawgo’s friends sat on the concrete sidewalk next to a pool of Shawgo’s blood, smoked cigarettes and wept.

“He’s my best, best friend,” said Carl Kitley, a hotel resident. “I wish it was me, man.”

Kitley said Shawgo, a construction worker, was visiting a friend, Nichole Govoruhk, 18, in Room 11. While she cleaned, Shawgo sat on the windowsill and waved at his buddies below.

“He was hanging out the window, acting like a monkey, just being foolish and he fell,” said Kitley. He and other witnesses said Shawgo struck a white Maxima Nissan parked on Oak Street before his back hit the pavement.

Kitley and Govoruhk said they rushed to his side.

“He wasn’t breathing at first, and he was bleeding out of his left ear and mouth,” Kitley said. “We didn’t want to touch him in case he had broken his neck.”

He was being treated in the intensive-care unit at Ventura County Medical Center and was listed in critical condition late Monday.

“We have no written policy about not hanging out windows,” Kearn said. “Usually we rely on common sense.”