Celebrating the Life of Teen Lost in Crash

NEWPORT BEACH — The day after her adored older brother died in a car crash, Danielle Bridgman, 17, wiped her tears and went to the prom.

“We’re not mourning a loss, we’re celebrating a life,” said Danielle’s mother, Vickie Bridgman, explaining why she was helping her daughter into a black party dress so soon after the early Friday crash that left her son dead, two of his friends in critical condition and seven other teens with less serious injuries.

“She has memories that need to be created for her. She has friends and she needs their support and love,” said Vickie Bridgman. “And Donnie would want her to go.”

“Donnie” was Donald Bridgman, 18, a high school senior months away from becoming a snowboarding freshman at the University of Colorado when a friend, 18-year-old Jason Rausch, reportedly sped the Bridgman family car to a mangled end on a winding stretch of Irvine Avenue shortly after midnight Friday.

Many of the 10 Newport Harbor High School students who had packed into the Chevrolet Blazer were not wearing seat belts and three remained hospitalized Saturday. Meanwhile stunned, grieving families throughout the quiet section of Newport Beach that feeds into the school were holding each other in shock over the tragedy.

And others were asking through their grief how the accident happened and whether it might have been prevented.

A second witness came forward Saturday to say that Orange County sheriff’s deputies had stopped the teen-filled Blazer earlier in the evening, as the group of students left a party in the Santa Ana Heights area. The deputy let the group drive on without citing them after the students emptied their containers of alcohol, the witness said.

The witness, a student at Newport Harbor High School who spoke on condition of anonymity, corroborated an account by another student the day before. The two students said they saw the incident from separate cars.

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Sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Fred Lisanti said the department is reviewing its records and could not confirm or deny that the car was stopped by a law enforcement officer. Officials gave the same response Friday after the first witness came forward.

It was not clear from the accounts if all the teenagers in the Blazer when it crashed were also in the sport utility vehicle when witnesses said it was stopped by deputies.

Rausch had been the designated driver for the group, students who survived the crash said. He was not found to be under the influence of alcohol at the time of the accident but was believed to have been speeding, officials said. He was arrested on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter and released on $10,000 bail, officials said.

Vickie Bridgman and a parent whose daughter survived the crash said separately they were skeptical of the witness accounts.

“I have made inquiries and none have been able to tell me there is anything to that story,” said Bridgman, an Orange County deputy district attorney.

“Yes, I want to know what my son was doing in his last few hours, but not for the purpose of saying, ‘What if.’ It was an accident. It was tragic. It’s not going to change anything,” she said.

Eduard Carels, whose daughter Devon, 16, was thrown from the spinning truck and treated for cuts and bruises at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian after the accident, said his daughter and her friends insist the Blazer was never stopped by sheriff’s deputies. Nevertheless, he said he wants survivors to understand how dangerous driving can be.

He said he has already spoken with officers about taking the teenagers involved in the crash on a ride during a Saturday night shift “to see that this was not necessarily an isolated incident.”

“I’d want them to see how easily it can happen,” Carels said. “The driver wasn’t drinking. He was driving a car he wasn’t familiar with, and he was out of control. I think the kids were excited. It’s a miracle it didn’t come out worse for us.”

Newport Beach police, who are in charge of the investigation, said they planned to resume interviewing students Tuesday.

“We realize there’s a lot of emotions right now. It would be best for everybody to have a few days to rest,” said Newport Beach police Lt. Andy Gonis.

Responding to the reports that a sheriff’s deputy had contact with the student-driven vehicle, Gonis said: “The bottom line is, if an officer stopped the car, we want to know what happened. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the officer acted inappropriately.”

A memorial service at Mariners South Coast Church in Newport Beach will honor Donnie Bridgman on Tuesday, family members said. Counselors from the Newport Beach school district were available over the weekend to help distraught students. And the Bridgman family on Saturday established a scholarship fund in their son’s name at a Great Western Bank branch in Costa Mesa.

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On Saturday evening Daniel Townsend, 18, a Newport Harbor senior, and Amanda Arthur, 17, a junior, remained in critical condition at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana.

“The doctor said [to have] patience,” one family friend said at the hospital Saturday. “There’s just a lot of prayer for them.”

In Newport Beach, senior William Watson, 18, was listed in stable condition at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian. Two other students, juniors Kevy McNeal, 16, and Heidi Funderburk, 17, were released from hospitals Saturday and returned home.

Senior Eric Freeman, 18, was not hospitalized and David McMillen, 17, was treated and released.

A few miles away at the Bridgman home, friends came bearing plants and flowers throughout the day, and the neat two-story house filled with the pungent scent of roses and with tears and stories of Donnie Bridgman.

Upstairs, a gaggle of oddly hushed teenage girls curled Danielle Bridgman’s hair in her room at the end of a hall lined with framed photographs of Danielle, Donnie and Crystal Bridgman, 15. The children’s parents ordered a professional photographer to shoot the children in the same pose every two years.

Downstairs, there were memories: Donnie’s bungee jumping, skiing, his summers as a lifeguard and seasons playing water polo and swimming. His volunteer work in a convalescent home. The garden walkway he built for his grandparents in Brea.

“He was going to start the sprinkler system for me next week,” said his grandmother, Sharon Tollison, before breaking into tears.

At the scene of the crash near Upper Newport Bay, chalk outlines drawn by police investigators were still visible Saturday afternoon. Friends left flowers addressed to “Donnie,” candles and other offerings in memory.

An estimated 400 students had gathered on the street Friday night to pay their respects with prayer and songs.

“Always In Heart, A Player Till the End,” wrote one friend on a yellow water polo ball.

“We Love You Donnie. You Won’t Be Forgotten. You’re In Our Hearts,” someone else wrote on a piece of cardboard, nestled among the flowers near a makeshift cross and a stuffed teddy bear.

Times staff writer Anna Cekola contributed to this report.