Mom killed in wreck lived life for family
Personal Injury News
Article Date: 2/26/2010 | Resource: MLG
Mom killed in wreck lived life for family
One day before Lorena Mancinas died, she went looking for her missing brother.
She had a strong feeling, she told her husband, that she could find Jose at Hart Park, a bustling place packed with birthday parties and barbecues, in the shadow of the 22 freeway.
Jose Serrato Jr. was wanted by the law, relapsing into a life of drugs after jail. He had stopped checking in with his probation officer, his brother-in-law said, and he hadn’t been seen since December.
The family had filed a missing-persons report. Law enforcement had filed a warrant.
But his younger sister had a feeling she knew where she could find him.
Tuesday night, Mancinas took her husband Jaime to the park to look.
“She just said she had this strong feeling,” Jaime Mancinas said. They searched the park but couldn’t find him. Husband and wife walked near the freeway overpass.
There, left in the bushes, they saw a cross, Jaime Mancinas said. It stopped them in their tracks. A memory of a life lost.
“We were like, ‘Wow, someone died right here.’ We couldn’t believe it,” he said.
The next day, Jaime’s wife would take her last breaths, just feet from that cross.
Lorena Mancinas, 30, was driving her Chevrolet Tahoe on Wednesday to pick up her mother from work at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Orange.
According to the California Highway Patrol, Young Woo Lee, 26, of Garden Grove was driving west on the 22 east of Glassell Street when he changed lanes, clipping Mancinas’ right rear wheel.
The Toyota spun to the middle of the freeway and came to a stop in the carpool lane. The Tahoe spun off to the edge of the freeway, hit a guardrail and rolled.
The Tahoe rolled several times, hitting two trees and a chain-link fence before coming to a stop on Glassell Street. Mancinas died.
Mancinas was the only one in the car. Her 3-year-old daughter Jazzlyn Jolie’s car seat, which would have normally held a singing, happy, little girl who loves Mickey Mouse, was empty. She had been left with Jaime’s parents that day, luckily, he said.
The Mancinases had spent a decade together. Jaime’s cousin introduced them when they were 20. They married. She wanted a big wedding. He didn’t.
“I kept saying, no, no, no,” Jaime said. “She kept saying, ‘yes, yes, yes.’ So, we had a huge wedding.”
They traveled the world, Jaime said. Together, they took her first airplane trip. A Mexican cruise for their 2004 honeymoon. Costa Rica. Lorena joked all along the way, her personality contagious, her husband said.
For 10 years, Lorena worked as a teacher’s aide for Orange Children & Parents Together, teaching preschoolers. She sent Jaime off to work every day with a lunch she packed for him. She carefully buckled their daughter in the car seat while she ran errands.
As Jaime talked about their love and their life together, Jazzlyn sang in the background.
“She’s so happy,” her father said. “She’s spent the whole day singing. She doesn’t have a clue.”
Devoted to her faith, Lorena never let a cuss word pass her lips, her husband said. She never smoked. She never drank.
Saturday night, Jaime surprised his wife with a 30th birthday party. All of the family was there except her brother Jose.
They laughed and ate and laughed, Jaime said.
“I kept that surprise inside for two weeks,” he said. “She hated surprises. It was her first and last surprise party.”
Jaime was at work Wednesday night when his mother-in-law called him. Lorena hadn’t shown up. She was hours late. That just wasn’t like Lorena, her husband said. She hated to be five minutes late.
Lorena wasn’t late, Jaime would soon find out.
“I know 100 percent she’s with God now,” he said. “She was so close to God. You could see it in her eyes.”
There is a funeral to plan. On Friday, Jaime will bury his wife his constant companion for a decade. Still, Jaime searches for his lost brother-in-law.
“We have to find him. We have to find Jose,” Jaime Mancinas said. “He has no idea what has happened to his sister.”
For more information regarding this article please contact:
Jeffrey Marquart
(949)589-0150
jmarquart@marquartlawgroup.com