Twins Born After Bullet Takes Away Their Mother

Even the seasoned trauma specialists were shaken by the challenge delivered by ambulance to Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center: a woman shot in the head, in cardiac arrest . . . and carrying twins.

It was just after 4 a.m. Saturday. Minutes earlier, Carmen Valencia had been asleep in her motor home in South-Central Los Angeles with her family when the scratching at the door began.

Her husband, Florencio Valencia, remembers being awakened by the sound of a knife in the door lock. Then came the yelled demands of the intruder: “Give me your money!”

He remembers the man’s blood-shot eyes, the smell of alcohol on his breath and the crazy expression on his face before he abruptly fled into the night.

About 20 minutes later, bullets slammed through the walls and windows and ricocheted wildly inside in the cramped motor home, ripping through bedding, cereal boxes and vitamin bottles.

One bullet struck 37-year-old Carmen Valencia in the face and entered her brain.

At King hospital, doctors knew they had lost one but had two to save. The twins weren’t due for two months.

“I took one look at this woman and knew she wouldn’t survive,” said hospital neurosurgeon Duc Duong. “There was not much we could do to save the brain, but we rushed her into the operating room to see if we could save the babies with caesarean sections.”

Neonatologist Roberta Bruni said “the C-sections were lightning fast.” First one boy, then another.

“Baby No. 1, Joshua, was delivered uneventfully and promptly,” Bruni said Thursday. “He’s active and stable.

“Although his delivery was delayed by a few minutes, baby No. 2, Carlos, suffered the most damage and he developed seizures.”

Carlos, Bruni said, is almost certain to experience motion and development problems. He is scheduled to undergo surgery within the next six months.

Visibly shaken, Bruni added, “I interviewed Carmen two weeks earlier during one of her prenatal visits.”

Carmen Valencia, who also leaves a 14-year-old son, was pronounced dead on Tuesday.

After visiting his twins Thursday, each of whom weighs about 4 pounds, Florencio took a deep breath and said: “I lost the most precious thing in my life. Now, I have three sons to care for. I have to carry on. These things happen.”

Homicide investigators were searching for at least two men believed involved in what was apparently an attempted burglary.

Returning to their home Thursday evening, now impounded by police, Florencio and his 14-year-old son Jonathan again pored over the events of that night.

After the intruder left the first time, Jonathan said, “I tied the door shut with a rope. My dad said, ‘Oh, he’s just a drunk and he’s gone.’

“But he came back. I heard noises outside and looked out the window. I saw two men wearing dark clothes. Then there were seven shots. Now, my mom is dead. She was our best friend.”

His wife, a teacher’s aide, “loved children,” Valencia said. “They took her away. Now, I can’t get that day out of my mind.”

In a telephone interview, Carmen Valencia’s cousin, Margarita Garcia of New York, said news of the tragedy had been broadcast in Carmen’s homeland, the Dominican Republic.

“We all are burdened by a pain that cannot be described,” she said. “Carmen was unique, an angel.”

For now, plans are being made for the infants to stay with Florencio’s brother, German Valencia, 37, who has three children.

“It’s all so stupid, so sad; Carmen was a wonderful, wonderful mother,” German Valencia said. “Just a few weeks ago, she was reading to the infants even before they were born. When they moved around, she would play classical music and they would calm down.

“Right now, we have to concentrate on what we’re going to do for those babies and Jonathan,” he added. “They need us.”