Hemet Valley Chronicle
June 6, 2008

'SO HELPLESS': Mom frantic when she couldn't find mentally disabled son.

By CHARLES HAND/The Valley Chronicle

Oscar Cerecero was 12 years old the day he set out to take chicken tacos to his older brother at work. As he crossed the street, a drunken driver struck Oscar, causing injuries that doctors predicted would kill him in three days.

They were wrong. Though he lay in a coma for 67 days, Oscar survived.

But it was not the same Oscar who woke up and would never be. Though he is now 23 years old, the brain damage he suffered in the accident has kept his mental development where it was the day he tried to cross that street in his native Dallas.

That is why his mother, Otelia, was frantic when she discovered him missing from their Hemet home May 19. "There's no way to describe the fear that went through me," she said. "I felt so helpless not knowing where he was."

She called neighbors and friends to ask whether they had seen him. They had not. After waiting five hours for him to return, she reached out in desperation to the only other people she thought may have been able to find him.

She called the Riverside Transit Agency's Dial-a-Ride. The drivers on Dial-a-Ride know Oscar, she said, because she and her son use it to travel all over the Valley.
"It is our family," said Otelia. "We call it our Cadillac. We go to the doctor, the post office, the bank."

Rey Judd, a Dial-A-Ride assistant project manager, took Otelia's call and passed the word to dispatcher Gina Baca, who put out the word to watch for the well-liked Oscar.

Among the drivers who got the message was Richard Coleman, who was waiting to make his next ride. He decided to use the time to take a look around the neighborhood near Wal-Mart, which he knew to be a favorite with Oscar.

Within minutes, Coleman saw Oscar walking near the Wal-Mart parking lot. Coleman checked in with dispatch, then pulled up beside Oscar and invited him aboard for a ride home.

San Jacinto Mayor Jim Ayres is a member of the RTA board and said he is not at all surprised by the service provided Otelia and Oscar.

"It goes to show the level of professional people who represent the agency," he said. "They're not just coach operators."

Otelia said Oscar apparently wandered off by accident after seeking out landscape maintenance buddies at his apartment complex, people he could not find because it was their day off. He decided to use the public restroom, but it was locked. When he headed for home, he turned left instead of right and could not find his way back.

Earlier in the day, Oscar had overheard his mother talking about needing $13. Oscar decided to borrow it from the two maintenance workers, who Otelia said are always nice to him.

Among the phone calls Otelia made after she discovered that Oscar was missing was one to the Wal-Mart store, at Sanderson and Stetson avenues, where many people know him. Oscar has made a lot of friends at Wal-Mart, said Otelia, though he may sometimes get a little enthusiastic — by singing while he waits in line, for instance, or getting a bit exuberant with hugs. "Hug with just one arm I tell him," says Otelia, "but they say, 'Oh, that's just Oscar being Oscar.'"

Singing is something Oscar loves, so much that he makes the round of nursing homes to serenade the residents. He even puts on a tux. He likes oldies best, says Otelia. His favorite is the Nat King Cole classic "Mona Lisa."

She describes her son as a cross between Dustin Hoffman in "Rain Man" and Tom Hanks in "Forrest Gump."

Otelia's concern for Oscar stemmed not just from his limited abilities, but from an earlier experience. Oscar had wandered away on that occasion as well. When a police officer confronted him because he thought he could be high or drunk and found he had neither identification nor the ability to tell the officer where he lived. "He looks normal when he is sitting or just standing there," Otelia said.

Finally, the officer called an ambulance, which took Oscar to a San Diego County mental facility. It took Otelia three days to find him and, when she did, the doctors would not let him go because she had no documents to prove their relationship. They had also given Oscar medication that he is not supposed to have because of his brain damage.
Otelia said she did not want to go through that again.

Despite the bad times in her life, Otelia said she is willing to neither judge nor seek retribution. "I am not God, so I don't judge you," she said. "We don't come from a family that believes in suing or anything like that."