Beloved ice cream vendor injured in crash with DUI driver in Koreatown
A beloved Los Angeles-area ice cream vendor has been unable to work for more than a week after he was allegedly involved in a crash with a DUI driver.
Armando Calderon has served ice cream to neighbors in Koreatown for three decades, providing generations of families with icy treats and a familiar face. However, after a crash last Tuesday, he's without his truck and a way to make money for his own family.
"It's how I support my household, my wife and my children," Calderon told CBS LA in Spanish. "They've watched me work hard."
Calderon says that he was working last Tuesday when his truck was rear-ended. His family says that the driver was drunk when the crash happened on James M. Wood Boulevard, just off S. Hoover Street.
The crash left his truck with heavy damage inside and out, and the force of the impact knocked him off his feet.
Calderon was left with a cracked crib and stitches to a cut he suffered on his face. On top of that, he has no way to work.
"The hardest part is at night. When he lies down, it's very difficult for him to get back up, even do the most basic things," said Calderon's wife, Celia Garcia, to CBS LA in Spanish. "It's very difficult for us. He is the breadwinner of our household."
Calderon's daughter, Ana Miramontes, started a GoFundMe to help her father, hopeful that the community he has served for so many years can now help him in return. The family says that the money will help with living expenses and repairing the truck so he can return to the road.
"We are hoping for him to come back as soon as he gets better," Miramontes said. "In the same truck. He wants to keep the same truck, we're hoping, and that it will get fixed."
Calderon's family says that a nearby school was letting out when the crash happened, and that as difficult as the last weeks have been, they're grateful that it was their truck and not one of the families nearby.
