Santa Ana Pedestrian Killed

For eight months, Angelica Saravia endured a grueling commute with a smile--she was on the road to the American Dream.

Each day she left her tidy Santa Ana apartment at 4:45 a.m, walked a few blocks and caught the 5 a.m. bus to Laguna Beach, where she took a second bus to her restaurant job in Lake Forest.

On Monday, she never arrived. The 47-year-old immigrant, a mother of two, was struck and fatally injured by a van just a few steps from the bus stop on Broadway near 15th Street. Santa Ana police said the motorist’s license had been suspended because of a previous hit-and-run incident.

The motorist, who was arrested at the scene, “should not have been driving,” Santa Ana Police Sgt. Raul Luna said. “A mother . . . would still be alive today.”

Saravia’s death was the seventh pedestrian fatality this year in Santa Ana, which has the highest pedestrian death rate in Southern California. Even before Monday’s tragedy, police had scheduled a news conference for Wednesday to announce new initiatives in a 6-month-old program to reduce traffic accidents.

John Tyler Sutake, 40, of Santa Ana was being held in the Santa Ana Detention Facility on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter and was set to be arraigned today. Investigators said Sutake was driving his 1988 Dodge van along Broadway at the speed limit, 35 miles an hour, but apparently failed to see Saravia. Neither drugs nor alcohol appeared to have played a role in the incident, police said.

Saravia, 46, was rushed to Western Medical Center-Santa Ana, where she was pronounced dead of massive internal injuries, authorities said.

As relatives heard the tragic news, they gathered to share tears and memories. Saravia’s handbag, recovered by police, sat on the kitchen table of her family’s tidy two-bedroom apartment at Durant and 15th streets.

Family members recounted how Saravia came to the United States in 1993 from her native Bolivia and toiled for four years so that she could afford to bring her children here too. Marcelo Torres, now 16, finally emigrated with Maria “Maya” Torres Belmonte, now 22, husband Alfredo Belmonte and son Anthony, now 4.

A grief-stricken Maria Torres Belmonte recalled Monday that her mother shrugged off the hardships of adjusting to life in California. Trained as a librarian, Saravia brought to America the goal of a better life and a hope of eventually sending back books to impoverished areas of Bolivia.

Next-door neighbor Angeles Lara said she and Saravia often walked together before dawn to the bus stop.

“We would always talk about the dangers and the traffic,” she said. “She was careful all the time.”

City officials expressed their sympathy Monday for Saravia’s family and reiterated their commitment to make the streets safer in a city with an unusually large number of pedestrians.

“We have a population that uses their feet and public transportation as a primary form of transportation,” Luna said. “We have families without other forms of transportation.

“If you are going down the street and you look down for a minute and all of a sudden there is a pedestrian in your headlights, you hit the brakes. . . . It’s too late.”

Officials at the city’s schools have joined police in a campaign to promote pedestrian safety. On Wednesday, for example, parents are invited to participate in Walk Your Child to School day.

“It’s to symbolize the importance of safety,” said Al Mijares, superintendent of Santa Ana Unified School District.

The goal for parents is to encourage their children to heed crossing guards and pedestrian crossing lights.

At the beginning of each school year, administrators give parents the safest routes for children to take to school, Mijares said.

Maria Mendoza, a neighbor of the Saravia family, said Monday’s accident stirred haunting memories. It happened near the same intersection where her 4-year-old son, Edwin, was hit by a car in June.

“The force separated us and he flew about 10 yards,” she said. “It was totally lucky that he lived through the accident.”

Another neighbor, Mike Berry, said of the traffic situation: “It’s a problem that’s been going on a long time. . . . It’s hazardous to adults and children. The city should have done something about this a long time ago.”

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Pedestrian Death Toll Climbs to 7

Santa Ana recorded its seventh pedestrian fatality of the year on Monday, surpassing the total deaths for all of 1998.

1) Feb. 17: Rene Vazquez, Bristol & Highland

2) April 19: Natalia Gonzalez, 76, 17th & Grand

3) April 25: Calvin Carrera, 49, Main & Garry

4) May 20: Ramon Chaligo, Euclid & Westminster

5) May 29: Victor Chavez, 34, First & Jackson

6) July 20: Alfredo Aguirre, 41, 15th & Broadway

7) Monday: Angelica Sarabia, 47, Latest fatal pedestrian accident

Source: Santa Ana Police Dept.

Graphics reporting by BRADY MacDONALD / Los Angeles Times