5-year-old boy struck while crossing Welburn Avenue marks
Gilroy’s third pedestrian fatality in four months
Gilroy – A 5-year-old boy was hit by a pickup truck Tuesday as he walked to Rod Kelley Elementary School, the third pedestrian killed in Gilroy in less than four months.
Julio Gonzalez was crossing Welburn Avenue with his older brother, a third-grader, when a turquoise Ford pickup truck, driving southbound on Kern Avenue, turned left and hit the first-grade boy. The driver’s scream ripped through the street, and onlookers gathered, their hands clapped over their mouths. It was minutes after 8am, and many were still wearing pajamas. The woman just kept screaming, neighbors said. She was a mother, with a baby sitting in her car.
At 8:07am, paramedics, firefighters and police were dispatched to the scene. But it was Sharon Fuqua, a member of Volunteers in Policing, who was first to arrive. She pulled over on Welburn Avenue when she saw the child’s body, lying in the road.
“I only had half my uniform,” she said, “but I thought, ‘What can I do?’ I started directing traffic. I was in total shock – there was a lot of screaming, a lot of crying. But I had to get the traffic moving.”
Firefighters arrived just after Fuqua, and paramedics began to work on the boy, trying to keep him alive. His head, upper body and legs were injured, said Sgt. Kurt Svardal. As they pumped his chest, another woman, likely Gonzalez’ mother, ran out to the street, said neighbor Margie Pennucci. Screaming, the woman collapsed on the ground, hitting and kicking the pavement around her. Sobbing, others tried to comfort her.
An ambulance sped the boy to Saint Louise Regional Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. His brother was not injured.
In the emergency wing, Father Joseph MacLean of St. Mary Catholic Parish met the family, and delivered the prayer of last rites. A hospital chaplain and a police chaplain were already there, ministering to the family.
“We were trying our best to keep people calm,” said MacLean. “But who’s calm when you lose a little boy?”
Tuesday, the family was too distraught to speak with reporters. They moved into the neighborhood only a month ago, said Trish Nicholson, a neighbor. At their Welburn Avenue home, a girl translated for them from Spanish. Not now, she said.
Long after the ambulances sped away, people lingered, staring at the road, where Julio’s clothing, torn off by paramedics, lay crumpled and blood-stained. The scene was eerily familiar to those who recalled 5-year-old Brayan Trejo, killed on 10th Street in late June. Like Gonzalez, Trejo was walking with his older brother; like Gonzalez, he was killed when a pickup truck turned left across his path. Both were 5-year-old boys.
His death is the third pedestrian death in Gilroy in less than four months, after environmentalist Norman Watenpaugh, Gilroy’s beloved Birdman, died Sunday night while crossing Wren Avenue, a few blocks from where Gonzalez died. He, too, was hit by a pickup truck.
“It hits so close to home,” said Nicholson, a parent and neighbor. On Tuesday afternoon, she was moving out of her house on Welburn Avenue, next door to the Gonzalez family. Her daughter is a Rod Kelley student. “People drive double the speed limit in this neighborhood. In the morning, the sun hits, and it’s blinding … I’d never, ever let my daughter walk to school.”
She’s moving, she said, to get away from the heavy traffic, to live in a neighborhood with speed bumps.
Rod Kelley has one crossing guard, who patrols the intersection of Mantelli Drive and Kern Avenue, a few blocks north of where Gonzalez died, said principal Luis Carrillo. Staff have asked city traffic engineers about installing a traffic light at that intersection, he said. Five of Gilroy’s eight elementary schools have crossing guards, according to Teri Freedman, Gilroy Unified School District public information officer.
“Shouldn’t they put a crossing guard here?” asked Carlos Cardenas, who lives at the intersection of Kern and Welburn. “The school’s right there.”
Others wondered why there was no crosswalk on the east side of Kern Avenue, where Gonzalez was crossing.
“You cross anyway, because it’s easier,” said Renee Allen. She lives in the Crestwood Manor apartments on Welburn Avenue. “I’ve done it myself.”
Allen cradled her 11-month-old daughter, Brooke, as she spoke.
“Brooke’s not walking anywhere, ever.”
By 2:30pm, as children spilled from classrooms to meet parents in minivans, Welburn Avenue had been washed clean. Suds sparkled in the gutters, where only hours before police were photographing the scene. To watch the children, chattering excitedly about their school day, some carrying pint-sized American flags, no one would think it was a tragic day.
But everyone knew what had happened, said Carrillo. In the morning, counselors from Gilroy’s Crisis Intervention Team met with every class, explaining the accident, and offering their help. Gonzalez’ first-grade class was the first group they met with, said Carrillo, and the only class to be given the boy’s name.
“We had to be truthful with them,” said Carrillo. “He’s not going to come back.”
For many kids, the death evokes old wounds, he said. The Crisis Intervention Team, a school psychologist and counselors from the Center for Living with Dying are on call to soothe shaken kids – and staff. The school has hired a substitute teacher this week, in case a teacher needs a break.
As they left classes Tuesday, each child carried a letter, one side in English, one side in Spanish, to give to their parents about the accident. In addition, the superintendent is sending a phone message to every Gilroy student’s family, which explains the incident and recommends a family discussion on traffic safety.
Freedman called the incident her “worst nightmare,” second only to the school shootings in Pennsylvania, Colorado and Wisconsin.
Like the driver who hit Norman Watenpaugh Sunday, the woman who hit the boys has not been arrested, and may or may not face criminal charges, Svardal said. The incident will be reviewed by the district attorney’s office, which will decide whether the tragedy is a crime. Svardal said the woman was not speeding, and didn’t run the stop sign on Kern Avenue.
“It’s just a tragedy,” said Fuqua, as she waved traffic away from Kern Avenue Tuesday morning. “That poor little guy.”
