{"id":966,"date":"2018-01-31T22:11:42","date_gmt":"2018-01-31T22:11:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/life\/community-shows-outpouring-of-love-for-long-beach-woman-killed-by-drunk-driver\/"},"modified":"2018-01-31T22:11:42","modified_gmt":"2018-01-31T22:11:42","slug":"community-shows-outpouring-of-love-for-long-beach-woman-killed-by-drunk-driver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/community-shows-outpouring-of-love-for-long-beach-woman-killed-by-drunk-driver","title":{"rendered":"Community Shows Outpouring of Love for Long Beach Woman Killed by Drunk Driver"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u00a0\"bridget999\"<\/p>\n

A large group of family and friends gather at 8th Street and Euclid Avenue Tuesday evening where Long Beach resident Bridget Ingham was fatally struck by a drunk driver. Photos by Stephanie Rivera.<\/em><\/p>\n

To know her was to love her.<\/p>\n

If it wasn’t apparent how much 49-year-old Long Beach resident Bridget Ingham was loved, then the crowd of more than 50 people who stopped by a makeshift memorial in her honor Tuesday evening to share countless heartfelt memories, surely put it into perspective.<\/p>\n

Ingham\u2019s life was cut short Saturday night when a suspected drunk driver struck her car on 8th Street and Euclid Avenue<\/a>. She later died at a local hospital.<\/p>\n

According to a group of her childhood friends, Ingham was on her way to hang out with one of them, who lived only a few doors down from the site of the crash. When a neighbor told her a Honda Fit was involved in a crash, the friend rushed to the scene where she discovered Ingham.<\/p>\n

Three days after the fatal incident, that tight-knit group of women who have been friends for up to 37 years, gathered at the site to remember Ingham.<\/p>\n

\"bridget2\"<\/p>\n

Surrounded by a close-knit group of friends, Pamela Rivera (center) holds a photo of Bridget Ingham, killed by a drunk driver over the weekend.\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was everything to me and she was like my life coach, my rock,\u201d said one of those friends, Pamela Rivera of Long Beach. \u201cShe was genuine, she didn’t have any hidden agenda, she was kind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rivera still remembers the first time she met Ingham when they were 11 years old. Rivera had just moved to Long Beach from Minnesota while Ingham and her family came here from Chicago.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe came up to me and she said \u2018Is that Angel Fire perfume by Mary Kay?\u2019 and I turn around and I said \u2018Yeah\u2019, and she was like \u2018Oh, I really like that!\u2019 and we\u2019ve been friends ever since and sisters,\u201d Rivera said.<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t only her childhood friends who mourned her loss Tuesday. Dozens of people from her yoga community, where she was first a student and then a teacher for nearly 20 years, expressed the shock they felt upon hearing about her death.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf she were here she would tell us all to breathe,\u201d said one woman who knew Ingham for 15 years. \u201cStand up straight and breathe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"bridget01\"<\/p>\n

Ingham was passionate about yoga, said her mother Pat Bauerkemper. The Cal State Long Beach (CSULB) alumni graduated with a bachelor\u2019s degree in fine arts, focusing on dance.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was really good at teaching and she loved doing it and it was her passion,\u201d her mother said. \u201cShe always was into dance and then yoga and always into health.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most recently, Ingham was a certified Yoga Tune Up teacher at the now closed Yoga World studio in Long Beach.<\/p>\n

When she wasn\u2019t teaching yoga, Ingham also worked as a bartender at the Seal Beach-based O\u2019Malley\u2019s on Main, first in a full-time capacity and then only occasionally for nearly 20 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was a person who bonded everybody,\u201d said the irish pub\u2019s former owner Brian Kyle. \u201cSeeing old O\u2019Malley\u2019s employees here and managers, people that have worked for 18 to 20 years at the place. It\u2019s really hard, she was like one of the family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kyle said Ingham would drag him to dances he had no interest in, but she was proud of, so he went to support her. He most recently talked to her last week during which she discussed the next chapter in her life.<\/p>\n

\"bridget99\"<\/p>\n

Her mom and childhood friends said she had just secured at job at AAA where she was scheduled to start February 15.<\/p>\n

Bauerkemper said she has been overwhelmed with the number of people impacted by Ingham.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don’t have friends like this when you’re not a good person,\u201d Bauerkemper said. \u201cAll these people, some who I don\u2019t know know at all, come to me and tell me how sorry they are and how they knew her and loved her. I\u2019ve never seen so much love come out.\u201d<\/p>\n

A YouCaring account<\/a> set up to help cover funeral costs has so far raised nearly twice the amount of funds requested.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bridget Ingham\u2019s life was cut short Saturday night when a suspected drunk driver struck her car on 8th Street and Euclid Avenue. She later died at a local hospital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":155,"featured_media":66451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[534],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hi-lo","tag-fatal-car-crash","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/155"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=966"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=966"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}