Jairo Diaz, who just two months ago was eagerly anticipating his graduation from Murrieta Mesa High School, and planning his future in the military, is determined to regain his ability to walk, according to The Press-Enterprise in a recent report.

Diaz was driving home around 8:30 p.m. on the evening of Jan. 16 when he lost control of his vehicle after trying to brake at an intersection that was set to flashing red lights when he was involved in what police described as “a major traffic collision,” the Menifee Police Department told the Press-Enterprise.

The crash left him with horrific injuries.

He was rushed by ambulance to Inland Valley Medical Center in Wildomar before being airlifted to Loma Linda University Medical Center for specialized care, according to a GoFundMe campaign organized by his girlfriend.

Diaz suffered extensive injuries, including a bruised artery near his heart, a ruptured kidney, and a fractured pelvis, Athena Tovar said. “Doctors inserted a stent in his aorta to repair the artery, and he now relies on a nephrostomy bag due to kidney damage.

“His fractured pelvis required a complex surgical procedure involving multiple metal screws and chains for reinforcement. Before surgery, his femur had to be carefully realigned using a metal rod and clamp system. The six-hour operation required multiple blood transfusions due to significant blood loss.”

In addition to internal injuries, Diaz’s face was severely wounded by shattered glass, requiring over 30 stitches across his forehead, eyes, nose, and mouth. As he recovered from multiple surgeries, further complications arose — one of his lungs collapsed, forcing doctors to place him on a breathing machine. After several days, he could at last breathe on his own again.

Now, his girlfriend is working to raise $15,000 toward his long journey of recovery.

Diaz will be unable to bear weight on his legs for the next several weeks, after which he will begin three to nine months of physical therapy, his girlfriend wrote. “That’s where the fundraiser will come in handy.

Tovar says his recovery will require extensive medical care and ongoing therapy.

“We are hopeful that during his rehabilitation and recovery, he will regain the ability to walk again,” Tovar wrote. “With your help, we can make that possible. Please help with any amount.“

The campaign had raised $5,235 as of Friday morning.

“We ask that you please find it in your heart to help this young man move forward after enduring so much,” she said.

Find Diaz’s “Road to Recovery” GoFundMe here.

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“It is with great sadness that we announce the closing of LEMX,” the track’s operators wrote on Facebook earlier this week.

They added that the owners of the property had terminated their contract due to a lawsuit over the deadly accident, which occurred in June.

“It was their decision it would be in their best interest to have the track closed. I can’t say I blame them. All in all they have been very good to deal with as has the City of Lake Elsinore,” according to the Facebook post.

“It has been an honor and a pleasure to see you all at the track,” the post concludes.

Brooke Carlton of Vista was pronounced dead on June 2 — the day of the accident — at Wildomar’s Inland Valley Hospital. Her death was recorded 80 minutes after the 10:04 incident at the track located at 20700 Cereal Street, according to the Riverside County Sheriff-Coroner’s Bureau.

According to the Lake Elsinore Sheriff’s Station, which is investigating the fatal crash, Brooke was riding an electric motorbike at the park and was struck by another juvenile who was also riding an off-road motorbike. She was unconscious when first responders arrived at the scene.

The other child involved in the crash was treated at the scene for minor injuries, according to the sheriff’s station.

The Carton started a GoFundMe in June to help the family overcome their grief as they mourned a daughter described as “an absolute sweetheart” and a “total spitfire” with glittering eyes and a toothy smile.

The family has raised $85,310 to date. The donation page can be found here.

“Yesterday the good Lord called our dear Brooke Lily to heaven after a freak accident at a local motocross track,” the family wrote on June 3. “PLEASE lift our family into your thoughts and prayers, and hold your loved ones a little tighter for us as we try to navigate through this sudden hurdle in our lives. We love you always and forever Brooke Lily.”

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MURRIETA, CA — More than $11,000 has been raised for a Southern California family hit last week by a terrible accident in Murrieta.

“On May 10, Jimmy and some friends went mountain biking in Murrieta. It was a trail they had been on before, and despite being an avid mountain biker, Jimmy took a fall that ended up being catastrophic,” reads a GoFundMe page established for the family of Jimmy Francis. “He was airlifted to the closest hospital with a trauma center. He is currently in the ICU and is expected to have a recovery that will prohibit his movement for quite a while. Jimmy is a veteran, a Cub Scout leader and a local chef, on top of being a dedicated husband and father. He has two beautiful children and is very involved in their daily lives.”

As a chef at his San Diego-based company, Flights by Jimmy, Francis offers his cooking services for dinner parties and brunches.

Just after 12 p.m. Friday, multiple agencies helped rescue the injured mountain biker from a remote Murrieta trail in the hills abutted by Keller Road and Scenic View Drive, just west of Interstate 215. The area is near the Greer Ranch Trailhead, a popular destination for mountain bikers and hikers.

According to Murrieta Fire & Rescue, the injured rider had to be hoisted from the area by a Riverside County Sheriff’s helicopter. The rider was then transferred to an awaiting AMR ambulance and driven to a nearby hospital. The patient was in stable condition, MF&R spokesperson Dawn Morrison said.

In addition to Murrieta Fire & Rescue and the sheriff’s department, Cal Fire/Riverside County Fire Department was also called to the incident.

According to the GoFundMe page, the money raised for the Francis family will help pay for assistance during Jimmy’s recovery period.

The post SoCal Rallies For Mountain Biker Seriously Injured In Murrieta Crash appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Joseph Henry Mokate of Hemet is being held in lieu of $1 million bail at Banning’s Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility and is set to make his next court appearance Friday for a felony settlement conference, according to jail and court records.

Mokate is accused in the slaying of 29-year-old Boris Stepanyuk of Winchester. Stepanyuk’s body was found at the intersection just before 7 p.m. April 25; he had suffered a “possible stab wound,” according to the sheriff’s department.

It’s not clear what led investigators to Mokate. He was arrested in Palm Desert about three hours after Stepanyuk’s body was discovered. A relationship between the two men, if any, was not disclosed by investigators nor was a possible motive.

City News Service reported that Mokate pulled a weapon and stabbed Stepanyuk at least once in the upper body, after which he fled. Witnesses called 911, and patrol deputies and paramedics reached the location a short time later.

Court records show Mokate has no felony criminal convictions in Riverside County.

According to a GoFundMe page established for Stepanyuk’s mother and his younger brother, the victim was studying medicine and had dreams of becoming a surgeon.

“Boris was brilliant and worked hard to get into medical school,” the page reads. “After graduating from Point Loma Charter School, he graduated from UCSD. Then, he attended the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Boris was funny but reserved and quiet. He loved his family and his dog, a huskie named Mischa. He regularly enjoyed daily sunrise and sunset walks with her through his neighborhood.”

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“Concrete Cowboy” is a father-son drama set around Fletcher Street Stables, one of the oldest and last-remaining of Philadelphia’s hardscrabble inner-city stables. It dates back more than 100 years to when horse-drawn wagons were used to deliver produce, laundry and milk. But through tenacity and improvisation, Fletcher Street has remained a cherished refuge and an ardent pastime for both kids and adults on the streets of Philadelphia’s Strawberry Mansion.

“That’s a tough neighborhood but if you’re on top of horse, people literally look up to you,” says Gregory Neri, author of the novel “Ghetto Cowboy,” the basis for the film directed by Ricky Staub.

Neri first heard about the stables in 2008 when a friend sent him a link to a Life magazine article about Fletcher Street.

“The first image I saw was this Black kid on the back of a horse in the middle of the inner city in North Philly,” says Neri. “I had the reaction most people have, which is: ‘What is this? What’s going on here?’”

“Concrete Cowboy,” which premiered last fall at the Toronto International Film Festival and debuts Friday on Netflix, shines perhaps the brightest light yet on an abiding community of Black cowboys now facing an uncertain future. It was shot in the vacant lots Fletcher Street cowboys ride in, and its co-stars — alongside a cast of Elba, Caleb McLaughlin, Method Man and Jharrel Jerome — include many of the stables’ actual riders.

In a genre that’s been perpetually drawn to American myth and open plains, “Concrete Cowboy” is urban, contemporary and authentic.

“My dad was a big Western fan. I grew up sort of watching them with a side eye,” says Elba, also a producer. “It didn’t occur to me until the Bob Marley song ‘Buffalo Soldier,’ which opened my interest about Black cowboys. And it occurred to me: I’ve been making films forever and I’ve never been offered a Western. You realize there’s a deep history that spans America and Africa over decades, centuries in fact, that you’ve never seen in film.”

As film historian Mia Mask, introducing a series on Black Westerns for the Criterion Channel, has noted: “Hollywood definitely whitewashed the image of the frontier.” The word “cowboy,” itself, was a racist term for a Black ranch worker. (A white one was a cowhand.) John Wayne’s character in John Ford’s “The Searchers” was based on a Black man.

For the actors, encountering and enmeshing with the community was an eye-opening experience. McLaughlin, the 19-year-old “Stranger Things” star, plays Cole, a wayward 15-year-old sent by his mother to live with his estranged father, Harp (Elba).

“It was all a new experience,” says McLaughlin. “Being in Philly, there are actually horses that live in people’s homes there. It’s not just two blocks of people with horses. It’s a whole community. There are people with cowboy boots walking around. There are babies riding ponies. I was like, ‘Wow, this is different.’”

Staub, making his directorial debut, had initially planned to shoot the entire movie with local non-professional actors.

“Obviously, when Idris Elba shows interest in being in your movie, you pivot,” he says, chuckling. “When I was talking with Idris, it was probably a little brazen, I said, ‘I don’t want this to feel like Halloween, like you’re playing dress up. To me, you need to do the most work to fit into this world and not vice versa.’”

Staub first learned about Fletcher Street while living in Philadelphia. One rider that he befriended, Eric Miller, introduced him around and they began to conceive, a little quixotically, of a movie. Miller, who had once been set to play Harp, was shot and killed just a week before prep began on the film. “Concrete Cowboys” is dedicated to him. Still, Miller’s vision helped guide the production.

“Eric echoed something to me that really had a lot of impact. When he was growing up, he loved cowboy films. These guys even played cowboy videogames on their phones. Everything was about that cowboy life,” says Staub. “But he didn’t have a film growing up where cowboys looked like him. What Eric wanted to leave was essentially a Western reimagined with the Black community.”

On set, Staub was flanked by riders looking over his shoulder on the monitor or shouting lines to Elba. “I recognized this was their story to tell,” Staub says.

For Elba, who’s also to star in the upcoming revenge Western “The Harder They Fall,” it was more like making a documentary.

“I’m very open to telling stories that have a common truth but a unique perspective,” Elba says. “People in London, in Hackney where I grew up, will watch ‘Concrete Cowboy’ thinking it might be a Western and go, ‘Oh man.’”

The Fletcher Street Stables are also imperiled. The vacant lot its riders had long used — and which they’re seen riding through frequently in the film — is currently being developed. To survive, Fletcher Street needs a more permanent home. To facilitate that, the filmmakers have helped organize a nonprofit, the Philadelphia Urban Riding Academy, and a GoFundMe. They’re trying to raise money for an equestrian center and to convince Philadelphia government officials that the Fletcher Street heritage is worth preserving.

“We’ve been losing these stables one by one to gentrification. Fletcher Street is one of the first and last. It’s kind of like our history is being erased,” says Erin Brown, director of the Philadelphia Urban Riding Academy.

Brown, who served as a consultant, extra and stunt rider on the film, first started riding as a 6-year-old. She vividly remembers, as a kid, watching the cowboys riding down the street from her great-aunt’s porch. Since then, Fletcher Street has been her home.

“You come to the stables and you feel this love,” says Brown. “It builds you as a person.”

Jake Coyle • Associated Press

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