Hit-Run Crash Leaves Boy Barely Alive, Family Ravaged

Horrific accidents always divide life into before and after. But, as of late Saturday afternoon, Guillermo Navarro couldn’t bear to make that demarcation for two of his children.

Brian and Evelyn, hospitalized in the same room, will recover from their injuries suffered in a hit-and-run freeway crash. But Alex, 8, the oldest, lay in critical condition on life support systems. Navarro had been grappling with the sad aftermath of the Friday night crash for 20 hours. But he had so far spared his children. He had not told them of Alex’s grave condition.

“Brian is asking for him,” said Navarro. “I can’t tell him yet. Maybe later. For Brian, Alex was his teacher.”

When 4-year-old Brian asks, Navarro says Alex is resting.

It was an ordinary errand. They went out to buy something for the baby to teethe on, some plastic thing filled with water. Guillermo Navarro can’t remember what it’s called but when he describes it, he smiles--as if for one moment he’s transported back to a time, barely 24 hours before, when his biggest concern was navigating his family through a shopping mall.

Navarro was driving his wife and four children from El Monte to their South-Central home about 8:30 p.m. Friday. Headed west on the Santa Monica Freeway, near downtown, the Navarros’ brown 1987 Ford minivan had slowed with traffic when a white 1984 Toyota pickup slammed into the back.

Navarro got out of his car and for an instant his eyes met those of the pickup driver still behind the wheel. “When he saw me, he ran,” said Navarro. “I didn’t have a chance to chase after him, because at that moment, my wife yelled to me that the van’s on fire.”

The other driver, meanwhile, abandoned his truck and ran across freeway traffic. He was last seen at the Alameda exit. Authorities are still searching for the driver.

Only one of Navarro’s four children--3-year-old Jasmine--is not in the hospital. Infant Evelyn and Brian are in fair condition.

Navarro said of Alex: “We want to donate his organs.”

Navarro and his wife and their relatives waited at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center.

Even as Navarro described the accident, he seemed barely able to comprehend it. “Someone came behind me so fast--maybe 80, 90, 100 miles--and hit me,” said Navarro, slapping his fist into his hand.

The rear-end crash sent the children in the middle and back seats of the van toward the front. Both Alex and the infant were in the middle seats, but Alex suffered the brunt of the impact.

“The doctor said his brain made like an explosion on impact,” said Sergio Irvera, a cousin of Doris Navarro, who waited with them.

Navarro, 41, and his wife, Doris, 34, were not injured and got their children out of the van before the fire spread. Strangers stopped and gave them phones to call relatives.

As Navarro sits on a bench outside the Women’s and Children’s Hospital of the medical complex, he wears the same clothes he had on Friday night. He has not gone home. He has not slept.

Guillermo and Doris Navarro traded vigils over their children.

“Sometimes she’s here, sometimes I’m there,” said Navarro as Jasmine, unhurt, sat on his lap. Navarro, a 41-year-old auto mechanic, came here from Guatemala City 10 years ago. He knew no one. He had no money. He spoke no English. He speaks more now, but uncertainly. With a reporter, he spoke half in English and half in Spanish to a translator.

He described Alex. “Very happy, very studious,” Navarro said as his eyes reddened with tears. The Normandie Avenue Elementary School third-grader was born with an ear problem that required several operations. “He was going to have one last one to reconstruct his hearing,” said his father.

Alex loved movies and Pokemon cards.

“He dreamed of being a policeman,” said Navarro.

Navarro’s wife, Doris, her face stony, could barely speak of him. “He was my baby,” she said as she cried softly. “He was the best son.”

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Times staff writer Bobby Cuza contributed to this report.