Teen Struck by Car Expected to Make Full Recovery, Family Reports

Originally posted at 7:10 p.m. March 24, 2014. Edited to add new details.

An 18-year-old struck by a hit-and-run driver in San Clemente Friday is in fair condition, finally waking up from his trauma and is expected to make a full recovery, said a representative of his family, relieved to have found him.

Alejandro Velasquez worried his family when he didn’t come home Friday night from a friend’s house, said Rose Valesquez, his cousin. That wasn’t like Alex, as he is known.

“He always called to let his parents know where he was and when he would come home,” she said.

By Saturday morning, they had called the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, but they didn’t get any answers.

“They weren’t very helpful,” Rose Velasquez said.

Meanwhile, at Patch and on social media, residents who had heard of the accident were desperate to uncover his identity.

Nesa Anderson said her friend, Becky Lehman witnessed the accident at 10:50 p.m. Saturday at the intersection of avenidos Pico and Presidio.

Lehman ran to him, Anderson said.

"She held him and prayed that he would live as he was bleeding and not moving,” Anderson wrote at Patch.

Friends of Alex's saw the social media outreach and "started putting two and two together," Velasquez said. 

Velasquez said her cousin remains on a breathing tube for now, but he should be home in a few days. He's a recent San Clemente High School graduate who has gone to work with his father's landscaping business, Velasquez said. 

Meanwhile, sheriff’s deputies have yet to find the hit-and-run driver who struck Alex Velasquez, said Lt. Jeffrey Hallock.

“The last information I had was that there was conflicting witness statements about a possible license plate,” Hallock said. “They are continuing to follow up.”