Mystery of comatose man solved

It was July 10, a Thursday night, when a man decided to run across Pacific Coast Highway in Redondo Beach from the civic center area.

He might have been coming from the library, since the accident happened about 8 p.m., the time the library closes.

Witnesses told police that the man dodged a couple of cars as he made his dash. He got more than halfway across the street when a 1980s-model Chevrolet heading north hit him, breaking several bones and knocking him unconscious.

Paramedics took the man to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center near Torrance, where he remained in a coma. But who was he?

He was wearing shorts, and the only thing he had in his pocket was the key to a Honda. No driver’s license, no credit card, no ID. Just the key.

Early the next morning -- really more like late at night -- police searched for Hondas parked nearby. When an officer found one, police would bring over the key, hoping it would unlock the door, and help them trace the owner’s name.

The doors never opened.

The man was a John Doe. All police knew was that he was about 6 feet tall, 175 pounds and 45 to 60 years old and that he carried a key.

In many instances, it takes a day or so before relatives or friends realize that someone is missing and call police, said Redondo Beach Police Sgt. Phil Keenan.

This time, the days went by, and police heard nothing about John Doe.

The day after he was hit, police took his fingerprints, hoping they would match something in their database. Maybe he had applied to be a police officer or a firefighter. Maybe he had been arrested or had been a teacher or a real estate agent. The fingerprint check came up empty.

A week went by. No clues emerged about John Doe as he lay in his hospital bed.

Then police got a call Wednesday. After reading a news report about John Doe, someone called police and said they hadn’t seen a friend around in a while. The friend described a man about 6 feet tall and 175 pounds.

Police called the state Department of Motor Vehicles, which faxed a copy of the missing friend’s thumb print that is required to get a driver’s license.

At 7:30 a.m. Thursday, Redondo Beach police made the match. John Doe was David Straw, 59. To be positive, the friend went to the hospital to look at the comatose man.

What police know about him sounds like a country-western song. He had just lost a job, had broken up with his girlfriend and was, as Keenan put it gently, “between residences.” He had most recently lived in Hermosa Beach.

Keenan said that Straw suffered swelling of the brain, but that doctors expected him to awaken from the coma.

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jeff.gottlieb@latimes.com