At least four or maybe five cars full of teenagers were involved in a race that ended with one girl’s death Friday, according to an off-duty Aurora firefighter who was among the first to arrive on the scene.
Terry Findley said he was driving north on Airport Boulevard near Alameda Parkway on Friday afternoon when “at least four cars” filled with kids raced past him “driving incredibly fast, weaving in and out of traffic.”
About 2 miles up the road, two of the cars bumped.
“All of a sudden I hear a noise, look up and saw a giant cloud of dust and I see the car rolling,” Findley said.
Guadalupe Sanchez, 15, died. Two other teens, Mauro Najera, 18, driver of one car, and Diana Garcia, 15, a passenger in Najera’s car, were in serious condition at Aurora Medical Center on Saturday.
Three others were treated at University of Colorado Hospital and released Friday.
Aurora police said the accident happened after one car clipped another, causing a car to roll five times.
Officers estimated that the cars – a red Plymouth Breeze and a black Pontiac Grand Am – were going almost 80 mph when the wreck occurred between 13th and 14th avenues.
Jose Garcia-Felix, 18, who was driving the Pontiac, was arrested and taken to the Aurora jail, Edwards said. The drivers, both from Denver, may face charges of vehicular homicide and vehicular assault.
Friends and family of Najera and Diana Garcia huddled in the intensive care waiting room at Aurora Medical Center on Saturday.
One, Catalina Gonzalez, 14, was riding in the front seat of the Plymouth next to Najera and was wearing her seat belt at the time of the crash, she said.
Gonzalez, a freshman at Montbello High School, said she remembers Najera swerving away from another car, then hitting the black Pontiac and rolling twice. The next thing she knew, she was hanging from her seat belt.
“I just remember Diana telling me to get out of the car,” she said, referring to Garcia.
“If we had turned the other way we were going to hit another car,” Gonzalez said. “And it would have been a bigger accident.”
Gonzalez said she did not know Sanchez, the girl who died. But she said Sanchez was sitting in the middle of the back seat.
Gonzalez said Diana Garcia, who is a close friend, suffered severe head injuries.
“I just wonder what’s going to happen to her,” she said. Najera’s mother, Mirian Zapata, said her son had driven to Montbello in her car, the Plymouth, on Friday.
“He went to the school, he was doing everything OK,” Zapata said while waiting for nurses to take him to surgery Saturday afternoon.
She said she didn’t know anything about the circumstances of the wreck.
Wendy Sandoval, 17, a senior at Montbello and former girlfriend of Najera’s, was also at the hospital Saturday.
When she heard Najera was in the hospital, “It was like my heart was pulled out through my mouth,” she said.
Najera was to have graduated from high school last December, but instead dropped out to work, she said. Sandoval described Najera as a nice boy with a good heart but a quick temper.
“He loves his little sister and he loves his mom. I just hope he’ll learn from this and straighten up, get his life back together.”
Sandoval said more cars than normal were driving around the Montbello High parking lot Friday. She said boys at the school compete to see who has the fastest car. “It’s a boy thing,” she said. “They say, ‘I think I have a better car than you,’ and then someone will say, ‘OK, prove it!”‘
Felipe Garcia, brother of Jose Garcia-Felix, said his brother was not going to school but rather worked at a Burger King restaurant.
The wreck, which happened about 2:29 p.m., left utter devastation. The Plymouth, which had been northbound, lay in the southbound lane on its crushed top, its windows broken and its sides battered.
Scattered on the pavement around the Plymouth were baseball bats, baseballs, a jean shirt, a gym bag, a tennis shoe, an L.A. Dodgers baseball cap and a pair of broken eyeglasses.
Lt. Troy Edwards of the Aurora Police Department said Sanchez was partially ejected out of the Plymouth’s left-rear window and suffered massive head injuries. The Pontiac was carrying five teens, two in the front seat and three in the back, Edwards said. All five were wearing seat belts and two received minor injuries.
Findley, 46, said that when he saw the car flipping over, he went to a nearby Aurora fire station to alert firefighters and paramedics. He then went to the scene and began trying to help the injured teens. He said he pointed out two other cars involved in the race to Aurora police. He saw those cars parked not far from the crash scene, he said. Aurora police did not respond to requests Saturday to confirm that other cars were involved in the race. Findley said he was amazed no bystanders were hurt.
9News contributed to this report.
Staff writers Annette Espinoza and Howard Pankratz contributed to this report.
