Mt. Prospect teen recounts 30-minute deadly joyride

Daniel Ascencio was hanging out late Friday night at Freddy Najera's house in Mount Prospect when two girls from Arlington Heights they knew pulled up at about 2:30 a.m. in a 2002 Honda Accord.

“Hop in,” called the driver, 16-year-old Elibeth Solis. Her passenger was 15-year-old Jessica Ferrer.

He was pretty sure the girls were already drunk, and there was beer in the car. Even so, 17-year-old Ascencio willingly climbed into the front seat, while Najera got in the back with Ferrer.

The speed at which Solis was driving made him nervous from the start.

“I was telling her to slow down, but she wasn't listening,” Ascencio said Tuesday, subdued and sitting outside the house on Boxwood Drive he shares with his father. “I think she was doing it because she was just having fun.”

They weren't going anywhere particular, just drinking and riding. Najera and Ferrer were enjoying the adrenaline rush, but Ascencio put on his seat belt. Najera, 16, chided him not to be so uptight. “If we die, we die,” Najera told him.

Ascencio knows his close friend didn't really mean that. He heard Solis tell Najera the car was stolen. Najera replied that she was crazy.

Ascencio said he didn't know where the car had come from, but he thought it odd Ferrer was sitting on a baby seat right behind him. Police say there is no connection between the kids and the car's owner, who lives on the 700 block of North Eastman Drive in Mount Prospect and who told police he may have left the keys in the car Friday night after unloading groceries.

The ride went on for about half an hour, out to the Polo Run townhouses in Wheeling and then returning. Always at high speed.

At one point, Najera leaned forward from the back seat and kissed Solis on the cheek. The car was flying down Camp McDonald Road in Prospect Heights and Ascencio doesn't know why Solis lost control of the car. He thinks maybe she became distracted for a critical second.

Without warning, he says, the car suddenly swerved to the right, onto a lawn. Ascencio found himself looking at a mailbox right before the car hit it.

That is his last clear memory. He learned later that the car struck two trees and then came to a rest, in pieces. Solis, Najera and Ferrer were all thrown from the car and killed.

Ascencio woke up in a car that was no longer a car. Smoke and the smell of gasoline hung in the air. He had the odd sense that someone was on top of him.

Though his vision was blurred, he had no trouble unclipping his seat belt and walking away. He doesn't remember opening a door; perhaps there wasn't one. He stood there, with pain in his chest and shoulders, and a vague awareness of bodies lying on the ground. He felt an urgency to get away from the car, afraid of an explosion. He took some steps, and passed out.

When Ascencio awoke, there were bright lights and paramedics. He was loaded into an ambulance where needles were inserted in his arm.

Ascencio asked those attending him whether his friends were all right, but the emergency personnel told him they didn't know.

Long after the sun had risen, about 11 a.m., a woman at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge told him that none of his companions had made it.

“I was really happy to see the day one more time. And thinking of my friends who were not able to do that, it broke my heart,” Ascencio said.

A Prospect Heights police officer also spoke with him at the hospital, but he's had no further contact with the authorities investigating the crash.

He's since met with Najera's family, who are devastated by their loss and telling him he's lucky to still be alive.

Ascencio's own parents are overjoyed by his nearly unscathed escape, even as they're telling him they hope he's learned something important for his imminent adult life.

While the chain of mistakes that led to the tragedy are clear to him now, Ascencio wishes it hadn't had to be a lesson learned the hard way. And he wishes the same for all teenagers who are still living life and receiving the love of their families.

He said it was the families of his friends who weren't being thought about when they were drinking and driving but who are the ones now continuing to suffer.

“I feel very special and blessed because God gave me another opportunity to be here,” Ascencio said.

He plans to attend services for the girls Wednesday and for his buddy on Thursday.

Ascencio is a year away from graduation at Hersey High School in Arlington Heights. His recent experience has further cemented an old idea for a career path. His childhood dreams of being a doctor had already evolved toward that of physical therapist, and he was encouraged by those he saw in action over the weekend.

“It looked like it was a pretty nice job to be doing when you're older,” he said.