CHULA VISTA, Calif. — A mother injured in a chain-reaction crash in Chula Vista is keeping vigil at her 11-year-old daughter’s hospital bedside as the girl is slowly brought out of a medically induced coma.
“It breaks my heart,” Isabel Aguiar said. “As a mother, you don’t want your kids to go through anything like that.”
Aguiar said she was driving her three children, ages 9, 11 and 15, to school three Mondays ago. The family was preparing to move out of state, and she said it was supposed to be the children’s last day at their schools.
They never made it there.
Police said the crash happened around 8:30 a.m. along Fourth Avenue near Moss Street. A Toyota sedan pulling out of a driveway struck Aguiar’s Mazda, pushing it into oncoming traffic, where it collided with an SUV. Surveillance video captured the chain-reaction crash.
Aguiar said she does not remember the collision.
“I just remember the last thing is leaving the house, and that’s it,” she said.
She does remember waking up in the hospital in pain. Aguiar said she suffered fractures to her neck and spine, along with injuries to her pelvis, ribs elbow and foot. She said her lung was punctured, and she also developed a blood clot in her knee.
Her 9-year-old son, Andreas, suffered similar injuries as well as a head injury.
But Aguiar said her 11-year-old daughter, Areli, suffered the most serious injuries, including a life-threatening head injury.
Doctors are now slowly bringing Areli out of a medically induced coma, but her prognosis remains uncertain, according to her mother.
“Is she going to have brain damage? Is she going to come back to me?” Aguiar said. “They say they can’t know for sure until the sedation comes out of her body.”
At her daughter’s bedside, Aguiar said she continues talking to Areli in hopes that she can hear and understand her.
“I tell her to stay positive,” she said.
Aguiar said she watches videos of Areli every day, including clips of her daughter laughing before the crash.
“I watch videos every day, and I want her back,” she said.
As the family waits for answers about Areli’s recovery, Aguiar said they are leaning on their faith and the support of others.
“We pray,” she said. “Everybody says, ‘We are praying for you,’ and we thank them. Have faith and hope that she will come back to me.”
A GoFundMe campaign has been established to help the family with medical and other expenses.
Police said the other drivers involved did not suffer serious injuries. The investigation remains ongoing, and police said alcohol and drugs do not appear to have been factors. No arrests have been made.
Anyone with information on the case is asked to contact the Chula Vista Police Department Traffic Bureau at 619-840-2796.
This article was created with the assistance of artificial intelligence and was reviewed and edited by a journalist before publication.
