Louis Torres was struck by a hit-and-run driver in Benicia on June 21, 2015. He is pictured here with his fiancee, Desiree Harris. (Courtesy photo)

On June 21, 2015, then-24-year-old Louis (“Louie”) Miguel Torres of Benicia was struck by a hit-and-run driver just after 2 a.m. while walking in the intersection of East Fifth Street and Military East. Torres was walking home after working security at Rookies Sports Bar on First Street and stopping by Bottom of the Fifth on Military East along the way.
Torres was in a coma for one month afterward and continues to undergo treatment for multiple injuries. While many of his bones were broken, Torres’ greatest medical complaint at present is his vision. He has been declared legally blind, though he can see clearly in a small area directly in front of his line of sight, he told the Herald in an interview at his home last Thursday. “When they did the (initial) MRI,” Louis’ mother Gigi added, “they prepared me that he’d be blind, because when he was in the coma he had so many strokes and seizures. This is a miracle.”
Twenty-four-year-old Benician Erik Knight eventually surrendered to detectives at the Benicia police station after the department secured a $100,000 warrant for his felony hit-and-run arrest. The case remains open at this time.
“I forgive him,” Torres says. “I just wish he would say it,” referring to the fact that Knight has not confessed to the crime. “He says he hit a deer.”
The vehicle Knight was driving has not been located, so prosecutors are working with limited physical evidence, according to Torres. He has high praise for Benicia police, who have worked hard to gather other evidence for the case. He is especially grateful for lead detective Fred Ayala, who he says followed every possible lead.
“I just remember coming home,” Torres says of his memory upon waking from the coma. “I go to the bathroom, put some water on my face and look at myself in the mirror. Here’s some dude standing there that’s 50 to 60 pounds lighter, with a shaved head and scars. I go outside the room and scream at my brother Angelo. He says, ‘Are you awake this time?’ and I’m like, ‘Is this me? Is this me?’”
Torres recalls thinking, “That’s not me. That can’t be me.”
He has since regained the weight but still suffers from limited mobility and concentration. “I fractured my pelvis, broke my tailbone and ruptured my spine, and injured both knees,” he explains. “They’ve labeled me legally blind.
“When I first woke up, my memory was shot. Every day was a new day. I didn’t know what day it was. What month. But my friends I never forgot. Friends I’ve known since elementary school like Josh, Ricky and Allie, Win, Ryan, all of them. I knew them immediately.”
Despite numerous physical and logistical hindrances, Torres is holding down a job and taking classes at Solano Community College, with plans to transfer as a junior to San Francisco State University.
“I have 100 hours of training I’m going through for one job, and I’m still going to school. I just aced my last final. I started classes just weeks after I woke up,” he smiled.
“I still want to write films. Me and Win (Cowger) are working on something called ‘The Shining Star Across the Bay.’ That’s a story about exactly what happened before the accident and how many lives have been touched here in this town, and exactly what happens to a town when a soldier has gone down.
“He wrote the story while I was in a coma. It’s about 100 pages long. I’m writing the screenplay adaptation.
“It’s funny, one of the very first things I remembered from waking out of my coma was that I wanted to write movies. I remembered the exact plot to my movie, ‘Laugh Now, Die Later.’ It’s the story of two boys whose parents were killed by their own grandparents because they were born into a different type of mob. The Italians don’t mess with the Puerto Ricans, so the Italians killed their Puerto Rican dad and their Italian mom.”
And that’s not all Torres is up to.
“There’s more than that. I have ‘Octavius the One-Eyed King,’ and ‘Raw Dogs,’ a story of young iron workers.”
In addition to working, attending school and writing screenplays, Torres also hopes to use his unfortunate experience to help others.
“I had fought with depression a lot. After this happened, when I finally woke up and started realizing how many people did care about me, I just melted. I never felt that type of love before. Now I don’t ever think about being depressed. Now all I want to do is help other people who are depressed. For that I can thank Erik,” he said, referring to the hit-and-run suspect.
“I did have some funk with him and his friends, in high school, but I know who he is. I know he didn’t intentionally try to kill me.”
Police have thus far been unable to locate the vehicle involved in the incident. “He got rid of the car,” Torres says, “but I do have a witness. I usually walk these girls home because I was a bouncer. I was right in front of them and they seen it. They’re the ones who called (police).”
Torres says he has also learned a lesson about the profound experience of forgiveness.
“That was one of the last sermons that I attended. It was on forgiveness, and that hit hard,” he recalls. “I’ve heard that sermon in church many times but never heard it quite like that. They were talking about people who had been in accidents with drunk drivers.
“I can’t ride in cars with people driving crazy,” he says of his occasional post-traumatic stress symptoms. “And I have. I’ve seen people starting to text (while driving) and I’m like, put away that phone!”
Torres indicated that he wanted to share a quote he always liked, and that continues to inspire him.
“I’d like this quote to be in the story. I’m a huge Rocky fan (the 1976 movie starring Sylvester Stallone). Rocky Balboa said, ‘It ain’t how hard you hit, it’s how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.’
That to me expresses everything I went through, even before (the accident). Rocky is my story. I have my left eye out now, so, ‘Cut me, Nick.’”
He also had some parting thoughts to share.
“I would just like people who are depressed or anything to think. You could be gone tomorrow. Look at the people you love. Spend that time with the people you love. And build. Build. You only have one life to live. You have to build with the people you love. There’s no room for hate. Just keep on pursuing what you need to pursue. You only have one life to live. Just do it.”
Gigi Torres also had some thoughts to add.
“I know the community was really supportive. That month that he was in the hospital, we (up to 100 friends and family members, she estimates) pretty much lived there for a month. It looked like a homeless encampment. The fact that John Muir (Hospital) allowed us to all stay there. They allowed us to be there a solid month while he was in the coma. That gave us hope.”
Louis added, “I would also like to acknowledge that my brother helped me learn how to walk again. I did not want to be in that wheelchair. So my brother Angelo tried to teach me how to walk every day before he went to work.
“Lilliana (Louis’ older sister) has been a big help. She helped me with the first semester of school that I went through last year. She gets her double master’s this month.” Lilliana recently completed a double master’s degree in museum studies and business at John F. Kennedy University.
Torres recently moved out of his mother’s home in Benicia and currently resides in Vallejo with his fiancee Desiree Harris, his brother Angelo and their friend Ricky, and one more on the way – on or about July 29, he and his fiancee are expecting a baby girl, to be named Avianna Natalia Harris Torres.

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