Woman Who Tried to Save Daughter Dies

Angelica Cuevas, the young mother who jumped into churning seas off Laguna Beach to save her daughter on Mother’s Day, gave up her own tenuous hold on life Tuesday night.

Family members elected to disconnect Cuevas, 26, from life-support 10 hours after doctors at South Coast Medical Center in Laguna Beach declared her brain dead. Her boyfriend, Zackery Kunzler, 24, died shortly after the trio were pulled from the ocean by lifeguards Sunday.

“She was one of those magnetic types of people that you can’t help but want to be around. She was so positive and uplifting,” said Stacy Rydman, 30, a neighbor, co-worker and close friend of Cuevas, who lived in Huntington Beach. “In our eyes, the two of them are heroes. They were able to save the girl’s life.”

The daughter, 6-year-old Brooke Poling, was hospitalized with minor injuries but has been released, and is staying with her father, whom friends identified as Eric Poling.

“There will be a lot of adjustments made to Brooke’s life,” said Tony Cuevas, 30, the mother’s brother. “The only thing we can do is be here for her, supporting her . . . ease the shock as much as possible.”

Anjelica Cuevas and Kunzler apparently drowned after jumping 10 feet off a rock into an oceanside crevasse to save Brooke, who had lost her footing after a large wave rolled over the rock on which they were standing, authorities said.

Witnesses said Kunzler kept the girl afloat on his shoulders in the churning waters until a lifeguard could haul her to safety. Waves continued to batter Cuevas and Kunzler before lifeguards pulled them to shore. Kunzler was pronounced dead a short time later at Saddleback Memorial Medical Center in Laguna Hills. Cuevas was on life-support at South Coast until about 7 p.m. Tuesday.

Tony Cuevas described his sister as a person who loved the beach and took delight in the warmth of people around her.

“The No. 1 thing that made her happy was that she always put people before herself, and in this case that is exactly what she was doing,” he said, adding that the family feels a debt of gratitude to Kunzler for saving Brooke. The family has started a trust fund for the girl through Home Savings of America.

Cuevas was “a very, very happy person,” the brother said, with a strong commitment to God, her daughter, and, more recently, to Kunzler.

A memorial service for Kunzler is scheduled for 3 p.m. today at Westminster Memorial Park in Huntington Beach. Plans were being made for a service for Cuevas on Saturday.

On Wednesday, Kunzler’s family found hints of the kind of day the couple had planned for Brooke.

“Just a few hours ago, his brother Christopher and I were going through his car,” the father, Kenneth Kunzler, said late Wednesday afternoon. “We looked in the trunk and there was a brand-new little kid’s kite. How’s that for a heart-wrenching little reminder of how the day was supposed to have gone?”

Dylan Ridgel, 25, a close friend of Kunzler and his neighbor in Seal Beach, said he watched Kunzler’s friendship with Cuevas grow into a romance.

“They would go over to her place and he would make her dinner,” Ridgel said. “He liked to cook her filet mignons, and nice four-course meals. Zack was a good cook. They just liked to sit and talk with each other.”

Cuevas and Kunzler met a year ago after she joined Triad Financial Corp., an auto loan firm in Huntington Beach where he worked.

“She was one of those people who are beautiful on the inside and the outside, and it shined through with everybody,” Rydman said. “All the good qualities you could find in a person, she had. She was a great mom, and a good friend. She was always there when you needed her.”

Cuevas grew up in Bellflower and moved to Huntington Beach about two months ago, in hopes of raising her daughter in a more stable neighborhood and to be closer to her job, Rydman said. Mother and daughter moved in with another woman from the circle of friends at Triad, where Cuevas worked as a supervisor, and around the corner from where Rydman lives with a young niece and her mother.

The deaths sent a wave of grief through Triad, where Kunzler and Cuevas were part of a large group of close friends who routinely gathered at a nearby saloon for Friday after-work parties, and on weekends for backyard barbecues.

“Losing the two of them in this short span of time has been really quite traumatic for us,” Ann Schroeder, human resources director, said. “Both were well-loved and just very young and vibrant and full.”

Just last weekend, a half-dozen of the friends--including Cuevas and Kunzler--traveled to San Diego for a crawfish festival, said Rydman, who worked with Kunzler as an auditor.

“Zack was a very spirited young man,” Schroeder said. “Women loved him. He was just beautiful and gorgeous and fun and had a wonderful heart. That’s probably why the two of them bonded so well. They were both warm-hearted and extremely bright.”

For Kunzler’s family, the deaths added a new element of tragedy to their already sad memories of the day that celebrates motherhood. Kunzler’s own mother lost a battle with breast cancer on Mother’s Day two years ago.

“How’s that for a crummy experience?” said Kenneth Kunzler, who traveled from his Fresno home this week to claim his son’s body. “I don’t think that’s one we’ll be celebrating.”

Zack Kunzler was born in Astoria, Ore. His parents divorced when he was about 4, and he lived first with his mother in South Lake Tahoe for about six years, then with his father in the Modesto area before finishing high school in Gardnerville, Nevada.

Family members were not surprised that Kunzler would jeopardize his life to save a young child.

“My brother, when it comes to kids, has always had a soft heart,” said Christopher Kunzler, 20, a Navy airman stationed at Camp Pendleton. “My mom, she had a day care center when we were growing up, and we both helped.”

The father said Kunzler, as a boy, had a voracious appetite for learning, and was placed in gifted and advanced programs.

“They couldn’t feed him stuff quick enough,” his father said.

Kunzler skipped college, though, and moved to Orange County five years ago in search of job opportunities, his father said. He worked first at an art gallery before eventually signing on with Triad as an auditor in November 1996.

The elder Kunzler said he knew of his son’s relationship but hadn’t met Cuevas. He last spoke with his son just hours before his death.

“He called me from the office on Mother’s Day morning,” the father said by telephone from his Huntington Beach hotel room. “He was just finishing up paperwork to get a head start on Monday. He said he and Angie were going to take the little girl to the beach and take her to the tidal pools and show her the stuff.”

Hours later, he said, Laguna Beach police called to tell him his son was dead.