Ailing Youth Dies on Way to School

A 16-year-old Pacoima youth stopped breathing on a school bus Monday morning and was pronounced dead an hour later at a hospital, authorities said.

Jose Vitela, a sophomore at John H. Francis Polytechnic High School, had muscular dystrophy and was in declining health, according to his uncle Enrique Garcia.

The bus was en route to the Sun Valley school when the driver noticed that Jose wasn’t breathing. The youth was taken by ambulance to Pacifica Hospital of the Valley, where he was pronounced dead shortly after 8 a.m., Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Bob Collis said.

“When paramedics arrived, the boy was in full cardiac arrest,” Collis said.

A school nurse and psychologist told Jose’s classmates of his death. Assistant Principal Dan Scharf said a team of counselors also was sent to the school.

Scharf described Jose as “a very affable young man with a wonderful, winsome smile.” He said the boy enjoyed woodworking class and rode his wheelchair around the campus “not exactly speeding, but definitely quickly. He would be high-fiving whoever and whatever along the way.”

Last week, 15-year-old Ricardo Martinez collapsed in a locker room at Van Nuys High School a few miles away and died at a hospital. The results of an autopsy were inconclusive in that case, Los Angeles County coroner’s spokesman Scott Carrier said Monday. Toxicology tests are still pending, Carrier said.