Youth Hurt in Crash Goes Home

Erik Pena went home Thursday, scarred and facing more surgeries, but remarkably upbeat after a month in the hospital.

The 13-year-old was seriously injured Aug. 7 when a sedan careened into a group of young students standing on an Anaheim Hills street corner. He was dragged 50 feet and suffered friction burns on his back and burns on his stomach from leaking radiator fluid. His feet were burned as well.

He was the most seriously injured of the four students hurt in the accident, which set off pandemonium among parents and schoolchildren as they left El Rancho Middle School for the day.

“He’s a very lucky boy,” said Dr. Peter Grossman, a burn specialist. “It’s very, very possible that this type of injury could have killed him.”

Erik’s treatment included a series of four painful skin grafts and frequent dressing changes. And through it all, his nurses say, Erik kept his sense of humor, never feeling sorry for himself.

“He’s the kind of kid you love to have as a patient,” said Denise Walden, a nurse at the Grossman Burn Services unit at Western Medical Center in Santa Ana.

Some said Erik pushed another student out of the path of the oncoming car, only to take the brunt of the impact. Police in Anaheim said they have heard the same thing, though they could not confirm it since their investigation focused on the driver and those who were injured.

Asked if he felt like a hero, Erik was noncommittal. “I don’t know,” he said, smiling.

But when he spoke of the accident, Erik’s smile vanished.

He was with a group of about 15 students standing at the corner of Santa Ana Canyon Road and Fairmont Boulevard in Anaheim Hills when a driver drove into the group of students after jumping a sidewalk, clipping a pickup truck and careening off an SUV. The driver, who had suffered a seizure, was not charged in the accident.

“Everybody started running, and I saw the girl,” Erik said. “I saw the car was about to hit her, and I just pushed her out of the way.”

Then he felt the car.

“I remember the car pushing me, and I think I fainted for a little bit, and then the fluid started burning me,” he said. “But I couldn’t move.”

He remembers a crowd of people reassuring him, telling him that everything would be OK as they lifted the car away. He remembers being “really in pain.”

Despite the painful recovery and the lingering injuries, Erik said he just did what he thought was right.

His father, Armando Pena, said he’s proud of his son.

“He’s always been a noble kid,” Pena said in Spanish, his niece Jamie Pena interpreting.