It was a busy Friday night at the Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center where nurse Jennifer Medina was working at registration when a hit-and-run accident victim was rushed to the emergency room.
The records listed the victim as a John Doe. When Jennifer and a co-worker checked the man for identification, when she got the wallet, something hit her. She recognized the wallet as her brother's, further confirmed when she saw brother Cesar's face on it.
"Everything just collapsed. I just couldn't hold it together," Jennifer told NBC.
The 23-year-old Cesar, a skateboarder, was hit by a truck in San Juan Capistrano, while he was in a crosswalk with the right of way. The motorist, 19-year-old Andrew Christopher Michaels, was driving a Dodge Ram. Police and witnesses said that Cesar flew 20 feet in the air when he was hit by the truck.
Andrew fled the accident scene but was arrested on Saturday night, while his truck was impounded. Cesar died from the accident despite efforts by the doctors to revive his heart, but there was too much trauma to his brain. Jennifer has created a GoFundMe page where she hopes to raise $10,000 for her bereaved family.
She wrote, "The day I feared the most - the day I would see my little brother come I as a trauma patient to my work. I was supposed to be the one in the trauma room registering him but thank goodness I wasn't," quotes CBS.