Woman continues physical and emotional recovery after crash that
killed her boyfriend
– and father of her children
Gilroy – Alyssa Calimpong had no idea she was a bride-to-be when a crash left her seriously injured and claimed her longtime boyfriend, Ron Dominguez.
The couple and two friends were traveling at the start of a long Memorial Day weekend. Calimpong thought the coming days would be filled with chores and spring cleaning projects at Dominguez’s mother’s home in Cromberg, northwest of Truckee.
But Dominguez also had something more exciting in mind – to marry his long-time girlfriend and the mother of his two sons.
Dominguez drove along Highway 70 toward Cromberg, northwest of Truckee, where his mother lives, while Calimpong rode in the middle bench seat. It was just after noon on May 27, a hot, sunny day.
She has no memory of the crash.
Calimpong, 34, drifted off. When she woke up, she was in a hospital bed at Enloe Medical Center in Chico, surrounded by family members.
“I knew. They didn’t have to tell me,” she said. “I just knew already.”
Dominguez, 41, succumbed to his injuries at the scene of the head-on collision with another vehicle. The California Highway Patrol reported that a bee flew in through Dominguez’s open window, struck his chest, and landed in his lap. His attention drawn to the bee, he allowed the van to cross into oncoming traffic on a curve in the road.
The couple’s friends and the driver of the other vehicle all suffered major injuries and were also treated at Enloe.
Marriage had been on the couple’s list of things to do, but there were no immediate plans, Calimpong said recently. The wedding was a surprise for her.
“He had everything set up,” she said. “How he did all that, I don’t know. He was good at surprises.”
Only the two friends riding in the van that afternoon knew that Dominguez had purchased the rings, acquired a marriage license, reserved a chapel in Reno and arranged for the ceremony.
When Calimpong first learned of her twist of fate – in the blur of her hospital stay, she doesn’t remember exactly how – she was devastated, she said. Now, the idea that Dominguez planned to make her his wife gives her some comfort.
“I’m just grateful that I had the time that I had with him, and at least he passed away happy,” she said.
Calimpong stayed in the hospital for a full month before returning home to Gilroy, where she continues to recuperate. Plenty of visitors buoyed her spirits, she said, including all her family, friends, and even people she didn’t know.
“When I was in the hospital, I did a lot of grieving,” Calimpong said. “And building my strength to be able to take care of my kids. … This is what Ron would want me to do: Take care of the kids.”
Calimpong, who now receives disability, did not want to say much about her two elementary-aged boys who were staying with family in Gilroy when the accident occurred. She said she spent much of the summer “working with them” so they will understand and accept their father’s death.
“They’re doing well,” she said. “They’re young. They have a lot of support from family and friends.”
She continues to take life one day at a time as she heals physically as well as emotionally. In the crash, she broke her jaw, her left leg, her pelvis on both sides, lost the hearing in her right ear and shattered some of the bones in her face.
For nearly a month after she returned to Gilroy, her jaw remained wired shut. All her meals were liquid – soup, milkshakes, whatever could be blended up and drunk through a straw. More surgery awaits her, one on her face and possibly another on her leg.
“It’s just a slow process and I’ve got to be patient with it,” she said.
Photos of Dominguez fill the Gilroy townhouse they owned together. One colored head shot printed on plain white paper covers the screen of the desktop computer sitting on a desk in the family room. Dozens of smaller pictures are lined up on a side table near the kitchen, next to sports paraphernalia bearing the emblems of the San Francisco Giants and 49ers – teams Dominguez followed with passion.
“He was a man who cared about his family, his friends, that’s just the type of person he was,” Calimpong said.
Dominguez worked hard, but balanced his life between work and family, she said. Saturdays were family days.
“We would go to the movies, have breakfast, lunch, dinner together,” she said. “That was the one day we all spent together.”
The community’s support for Calimpong and her children since the accident is nearly overwhelming, she said. Offers of help from family, friends and acquaintances poured in. Countless people volunteered to help care for the boys. The families at Rod Kelley Elementary School, which the children attend, also reached out and were very supportive, particularly first-grade teacher Christel Morley. She organized a fundraiser in June for the family.
