Alex Martinez, one of the six people injured in the Fountain Valley Tutoring Center car crash died after receiving life-threatening injuries. Over 200 people showed up to the center to light candles, gather, and say prayers in memory of the 32-year-old who had worked there for seven years, Wednesday night.
At 8 p.m. friends, family, colleagues and pupils gather in front of the Tutoring Club to show their respects for Martinez.
“I lost everything,” Martinez’s younger sister Gwen Martinez said before the prayer. “He was my dad, my older brother. He was the person I looked up to.”
Martinez taught math, science, English and Spanish and helped high school students prep for the SAT at the center. He was a UC Berkeley graduate and was preparing to apply to dental school before the crash took place.
“He was the rock. The big brother to the other tutors,” Tutoring Club owner David Hill, 35, told reporters Wednesday. “The kids loved him. He inspired them to be better and not to settle.”
Here is the story from Monday:
“Officials said six people were injured after a car crashed into a Fountain Valley tutoring center, including the driver of the vehicle that caused the accident, Monday afternoon. Firefighters had to put up reinforcements to prevent the building from collapsing.
At approximately 1 p.m. near Brookhurst Street and Ellis Avenue, the Tutoring Club building shook. A 2011 Buick drove through the front of the afterschool academic program building. It stopped hitting the back of the building while a class was in session.
At least one person suffered cardiac arrests. Firefighters had to extricate a 32-year-old man who was left with life-threatening injuries, along with a 20-year-old who received serious injuries from beneath the vehicle. Emergency personnel rushed both victims to local hospitals.
Additionally, two 15-year-old boys, and a 67-year-old woman received minor injuries in the wreck. The driver of the vehicle, a 6-year-old Huntington Beach resident, was left with minor injuries.
Information from the Tutoring Club website indicated that the building was not yet opened for tutoring services at the time of the crash but between nine and twelve students were in the building at the time of the crash.”
If your loved one died in a car accident you need to contact an Orange County wrongful death lawyer. Call (877)782-3777 for a free consultation and more information.