Mom to paramedics: 'Oh my God, am I going to die?'
SUSPECT IN LOS GATOS CRASH HAD BLOOD ALCOHOL LEVEL TWICE THE LEGAL LIMIT
Sara Cole remembers it all: the sickening sound of crunching metal, her young sons panicked voices crying out, "Oh my God," and the burning pain.
She then glanced down at her twisted legs and knew in that moment she would never be the same.
"I knew from the way I was laying, I was hurt really bad," Cole said as she lay Friday in her hospital bed at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center.
There, the 44-year-old mother of four, appeared surprisingly upbeat for a woman who barely survived after an alleged drunken driver swerved off Blossom Hill Road and slammed into her, severely crushing her legs on Sunday. Occasionally, however, she grimaced and shed tears, not only from the physical pain, but also from the images of that evening.
She was loading her son's bike into her SUV, parked at a lot next to Baggerly Field in Los Gatos, when the boom came.
She fell to the ground and suddenly heard her 12-year-old son, Patrick, yelling out, "He's leaving. He's driving away."
"I had been wondering what had just happened and then finally I realized I had just been hit," she recalled.
Her son's baseball buddies and a woman across the street rushed to her aid and then the paramedics came. She never lost consciousness, and motioning to her legs, the nursing student told bystanders to elevate her legs and get her a blanket.
But she almost lost it when she heard the urgency in the paramedics' voices and saw the blood on her legs. "Oh my God, am I going to die?" she asked. The paramedic cradled her head and told her they were trying to do their best.
Soon after, officers stopped Lucio Rodriguez about four miles from the crash, which happened during her son's Little League game.
Rodriguez, 27, was unable to stand on his own when officers asked him to get out of his car, according to a police report. They said he smelled strongly of alcohol, his eyes were glassy and he slurred his speech. They also said that prior to stopping him Rodriguez was weaving through traffic and driving erratically.
He had a blood alcohol level of 0.16 when his blood was drawn about an hour and a half after/, well above the 0.10 level at which a driver is presumed to be under the influence/.
According to the police report, Rodriguez joined a friend between 3 and 4 p.m. at a 76 gas station not far from the crash site and the two drank beers behind the station. The friend is an employee at the station. The friend told police that Rodriguez left the station about 5 p.m.
Rodriguez, who worked at the Lark Avenue Car Wash and at Una Mas restaurant in Los Gatos as a cook, called the eatery to say he was feeling sick and would not make it to work. He said he'd been drinking and was not physically able to go to work, the report said.
Rodriguez faces felony drunken-driving and hit-and-run charges and a charge of driving with a suspended license. He is being held in Santa Clara County Jail without bail. He could receive up to six years and eight months in prison if he is convicted.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman said Friday that Rodriguez has been living in the U.S.United States illegally. Rodriguez had been convicted of drunken driving in March for an incident stemming back to January. He was sentenced to 10 days in jail and ordered to pay about $1,600 in fines. The sentence is consistent with a first-time offense.
"I have so many feelings. I'm glad they caught him. If I let myself go, I would have very angry feelings," Cole said.
At the hospital her 13-year-old son, Nolan, held Cole's hand. "I can't stand seeing her like this."
After her son left, Cole slowly shifted her gown to show a swollen leg, red and bruised, held by a device to keep the bone in place. "I don't even want to look at it."
Today, Cole is facing her fourth surgery and doctors say she still may lose her left leg.
But Cole - who had been studying to be nurse - is optimistic. "I'm very hopeful. I'm tough. It's going to be a lot of hard work."
