Garbage Truck Kills Boy, 8, Injures Friend

An 8-year-old boy was killed Friday and his 5-year-old friend injured when they were hit by a garbage truck while skateboarding through their Los Rios neighborhood, officials said.

The two youngsters, whose names were not released, rolled in front of the Solag Disposal Co. truck as the driver, Israel Garcia, was pulling out of a condominium development in the 31500 block of Calle La Purisma, officials said.

Garcia had just finished his weekly trash pickup at 12:15 p.m. and was leaving the complex when the accident occurred, said Cameron Spicer, Solag’s operations manager.

“He didn’t see them at all. . . . He felt something, heard a noise and stopped the truck to investigate,” Spicer said. “It’s just a tragedy. We can’t believe this.”

The incident was the third this week in which young children in Orange County have been struck by vehicles. Seven-year-old Miguel Dionicio of Orange died Wednesday after riding his bicycle into the street, where he was hit by a pickup truck. A 4-year-old was critically injured the same day when he ran into the path of a car in Stanton. The child, whose name has not been released, remained hospitalized Friday.

Across California, 90 children ages 14 and younger were struck and killed by vehicles in 1996, and 5,156 were injured, according to the California Highway Patrol.

One of the boys hit Friday suffered massive head injuries and died at the scene, said Capt. Scott Brown, spokesman for the Orange County Fire Authority.

The second boy, whose shoulder was pinned under the truck’s front tire, was conscious when paramedics arrived. They jacked up the truck to free him and took him to Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center, where he was being treated late Friday for injuries that Brown described as “moderate.”

The truck driver was not cited, but the accident remained under investigation, authorities said.

The accident drew dozens of residents to the scene, where they huddled on the grass and the sidewalks and watched Orange County sheriff’s deputies inspect the brown garbage rig. A yellow tarp covered the boy’s body, which lay partially underneath the truck’s front end.

“It is so sad,” said Isabela Vasquez, who moved to the close-knit community this year. “There are children playing around here all of the time, all over the place. We watch out for them together. If they go out of sight, we know they are in someone else’s view.”

Several neighbors, however, complained that children are left unsupervised much of the time.

“They run around like crazy,” said one woman who asked not to be identified. “I look out here sometimes and there’s 30 kids--itty-bitty kids too--going nuts, and there’s not an adult around.”

Spicer said the neighborhood is home to several of his truck drivers. Solag, which contracts with six south Orange County cities, has collected garbage in San Juan Capistrano for 30 years, he said.

“The whole scene is just awful,” Spicer said. “Those poor families.”

Times correspondent Steve Carney contributed to this story.