OC Family Mourns Loss Of Grandmother Killed In Hit-And-Run
GARDEN GROVE (CBSLA) – A Garden Grove family has been left without a mother and grandmother after she was killed in a hit-and-run crash earlier this week.
Police say the driver hit 58-year-old Celsa Anaya near Katella Avenue and Glassell Street in Orange Tuesday.
Anaya's youngest child shared the heartbreaking moment Tuesday when doctors told her family that the injuries from the crash were so bad that they couldn't save her mother.
"When we got to the hospital, and to find out that my mom was gonna – she wasn't gonna make it. It broke all of us," Unice Anaya said.
Video shows the Celsa Anaya being run over in a crosswalk. The driver of the white pickup truck never stopped.
"My mom was little. She was a little lady, shorter than me," Unice Anaya said. "Even if you did not see her, you had to feel the car hit her. You had to feel something. And for that person to just drive off and leave her laying on the floor, it's just – it's heartless."
Devastated relatives went to the Orange police headquarters and pleaded with the public and asked the truck driver to come forward.
Celsa Anaya raised six children on her own, sometimes working two jobs to help support them. The Garden Grove woman often rode the bus for two or three hours in order to get to work.
She was transferring buses early Tuesday morning when the pickup truck came into the crosswalk and ran her down.
"We just want justice for her. She did not deserve, she did not deserve to be left like this," said Celsa's daughter-in-law, Monica Anaya. "So anybody please, please come forward."
Celsa Anaya has plans to spend time with her mother the day she was killed, according to relatives, because it was her birthday.
Anyone with information on the incident is urged to call Detective Craig Brown at 714-744-7342 or the Orange Police Department at 714-744-7444.
