Tag: death

Morning.

pigurines

I went to two doctors today, both for minor reasons. Both at Newport Center.

These doctors’ offices are full of very old, tremulously decrepit white men in cheerful retirement clothing. They’re in aloha shirts and khaki shorts and running shoes, slowly dying.

The parking lot has a very low clearance. This results in comedy with SUVs. One patient made it in driving a Suburban; another with slightly larger tires did not, providing a condensed symbol of the Californian relationship with cars and a satisfying crunchy noise.

The pharmaceutical rep in the waiting room was qualified as a fashion model: almost six foot, slender, leggy, cheekboned and coiffed. Thieves and murderers always send out the best courtesans.

I did not buy the pigurines in the pharmacy window.

The sea has not changed

Today a sailboat hit the rocks of the Newport Jetty and sank. If there was anyone on board they’re dead; no survivors found.

This comes a week after a couple were swept to their deaths off the same jetty.

Pleasure boating and jetty fishing aren’t North Sea fishing, but they’re deadly serious business.

Winds to 45 mph and a storm-surge sea? I’ll stay on land. All the way on land, in fact.

When I was a child, we were anchored in our little boat off Catalina Island in a cove, and we lost the dinghy off the back of the boat at night. We couldn’t be without that dinghy, so my father swam out into the black water with a flashlight in his teeth to get it. It was a long, long time before he came back. I think that was our family’s most frightening moment.

Orange County Catastrophe Day

  1. Pedestrian struck, killed on I-405 in Westminster
    Northbound lanes shut down more than 4 hours while crews cleaned up.
    By KIMBERLY EDDS
    The Orange County Register

    WESTMINSTER – A man dressed in black was killed early this morning after being run over by a car and a big-rig as he walked across the San Diego (I-405) Freeway. The man, who has not been identified, was in the fast lane of the northbound I-405 near Beach Boulevard when he was hit by a Honda Civic and then a big-rig at about 1:17 a.m., CHP dispatcher Dave Clark said.

    The freeway was shut down at 1:27 and remained largely closed down for more than four hours as biohazard crews cleaned up lanes, Clark said.

    The drivers of the Honda and the big-rig pulled to the side of the freeway and called police, Clark said. No one has been cited in the crash. The investigation is ongoing.

    The pedestrian is described as a black man wearing a black hooded sweat shirt, dark jeans, black tennis shoes and a black baseball cap.

  2. Santa Ana man arrested in Upland deaths

    UPLAND – A 75-foot power pole being moved into place smashed through a car, killing the driver and a construction worker and critically injuring a woman passenger, police said.

    The crane operator, Joseph Dimaano, 31, of Santa Ana was arrested for investigation of involuntary manslaughter after the accident because the pole was moved onto the street without warning, police said.

    The pole was being installed at a corner shortly before 10 p.m. Wednesday and was dangling from a crane when it was moved out into traffic, where it went through the windshield of a car, police said.

    The driver, an 81-year-old Montclair man, was killed on impact. His identity was withheld pending notification of relatives, the San Bernardino County coroner’s office said Thursday.

    The passenger, an 80-year-old Montclair woman, was taken to a hospital in critical condition. There was no word on her condition Thursday.

    After the pole’s bottom end hit the car, the top end struck a worker on the ground who was guiding the pole. David Jenkins, 29, of Lake Elsinore died about an hour later at a hospital, Sgt. Greg Doyle said.