Crash victim getting by with friends’ help

Marisa O’Neil

Vance Hanning has been a regular sight around the Vista shopping

center for the past 35 years, picking up a doughnut, getting a

haircut or just sharing stories with others on his walk to work as a

stocker at the center’s supermarket.

So when Hanning, 56, didn’t stop by for a few days at Vista Barber

to chat with longtime employee Ralph Cornejo, the barber wondered

where he was.

When he went to check on him at El Metate Market, Cornejo found

out Hanning had been seriously injured Jan. 22, when a car hit him in

a nearby alley as he walked a friend home.

The driver took off, leaving Hanning in the alley with a broken

hip and leg injuries. He has been recovering at Hoag Hospital since

the accident.

“It’s terrible,” Cornejo said. “He’s upset. He figured maybe [the

driver] didn’t have insurance or something.”

Costa Mesa Police have not found the driver who ran down Hanning

and fled.”It just hits you,” said Eduardo Covarrubias, manager of El

Metate. “To think somebody could leave somebody just lying there. How

could you not know you hit someone?”

Hanning, who was profiled in the Daily Pilot in 2001, has worked

the same job at the same market for 35 years. He has always lived

within walking distance, said his mother, 76-year-old Maryellen

Basham.

He’s never had a driver’s license.

He’s so well-known and loved in the area that customers have been

asking about him and wanting to visit him in the hospital, fellow

employee Mayra Lopez said.

Employees at the market made donations for Hanning’s medical care

and this week put a collection box in the store for customers who

want to help him.

Hanning had hip-replacement surgery and was on a ventilator until

last week, after contracting pneumonia, his niece Alison Miller said.

Once he gets out of the hospital, he will likely need to have

physical therapy at a live-in facility for another four to six weeks,

his mother said.

“I just feel like he’s going to keep thinking about that job and

his friends, and I think he’s going to do OK,” she said.

Though he’s well-liked, Hanning is known for his cantankerous

personality.

“You see that movie ‘Grumpy Old Men?’” Covarrubias said. “He would

have been perfect for it.”

When nurses at the hospital told Miller that her slumbering uncle

seemed “so sweet,” she recounted, she warned them about his

personality.

“Just you wait,” she said with a laugh.

But he has a way with children, who always seem to appreciate his

unique charm, she said. He often got chastised at work for sneaking

candy to children who came into the store, Covarrubias said.

Hanning has a long recovery ahead of him but is already talking

about his job and getting back to his regular life, Covarrubias said.

And when he’s ready to return, his job will be waiting for him.

“I don’t think the store could be the same without him,” he said.

“He’s part of history.”

* MARISA O’NEIL covers public safety and courts. She may be

reached at (714) 966-4618 or by e-mail at marisa.oneil@latimes.com.