Leonardo Morales, a 23-year-old Santa Ana man pleaded guilty Friday to a drunken driving crash in which the SUV he was driving erupted into flames just before two California Highway Patrol officers rescued him, a woman and their two young children, according to the O.C. Register.
Morales admitted to single counts apiece of several felonies including driving under the influence of alcohol causing injury and driving with a blood-alcohol level exceeding the legal limit of .08 percent or more causing injury as well as two counts of child abuse and endangerment.
Morales also accepted sentencing enhancement allegations of inflicting great bodily injury, causing great bodily injury on a child younger than 5.
Morales is scheduled to be sentenced on July 19. He also accepted a misdemeanor count of driving on a suspended or revoked license.
Morales was driving a 2001 Chevrolet Tahoe at about 3:50 a.m., on April 13, 2015, when he drove it into a tree on the northbound Costa Mesa (55) Freeway offramp to 17th Street at the Tustin/Santa Ana border , according to the CHP.
Two CHP officers who were patrolling the area responded to the incident when they saw flames at the scene of the crash. But they too far to be able to help so they called the CHP dispatcher. Because of that two other CHP officers were able to respond to the scene and save the victims before they were burned to death.
CHP Officers Daryl Hansen and Timothy Montoya were the first responders at the accident scene. When they arrived they saw the driver, Morales, laying on the ground while a panicked toddler ran around and pointed at the car as the child’s mother, 22-year-old Kathy De Rosa was stuck in the front passenger seat.
To the officers horror, they found that there was yet another victim, a toddler, crying in the back seat of the smashed vehicle. The infant was lying face down, injured, on the car’s floorboard, behind the driver’s seat.
At this point the car was rapidly burning. Montoya grabbed the baby and ran to safety, then the two CHP officers managed to get De Rosa out of the SUV as well.
The driver, Montoya, said there were car seats in the SUV, but investigators believe that the infant was not properly strapped in.
The children ended up at Children’s Hospital Orange County, in Orange, while the two adults were taken to Western Medical Center in Santa Ana.
The baby, who was 9-months old, had serious lacerations to her legs and feet,” according to the OCFA. The toddler, a boy, had suffered a deep bruise on his head.
The driver, Morales, escaped the incident with a back injury while De Rosa had lacerations on her face.
The accident snarled early morning traffic as the 17th Street off-ramp and the nearby on-ramp to the northbound 55 were closed until nearly 6 a.m., according to the CHP.
