A West Long Beach family is asking for help finding the driver who killed a 76-year-old grandmother out for an evening walk on Friday.
Yolanda Hernandez was crossing Burnett Street on Baltic Avenue at about 7:20 p.m. when a white pickup truck made a right turn and hit her, according to a family member and Long Beach police.
After hitting Hernandez, a man got out of the pickup, looked at her lying injured on the ground, and then drove off, said the victim’s granddaughter Paola Padilla.
Before she was taken to the hospital where she died, Hernandez was awake and talking to bystanders after the crash, according to Padilla. She said a bystander and her daughter prayed with Hernandez in that moment, an action that was “beautiful” and “brings me a little peace.”
“I’m so blessed that people were there for her because I feel like she was always there for everybody else,” she said.
Now, Padilla and her extended family just want the driver caught.
She and her cousins spent the weekend knocking on doors and asking for tips from social media to identify a suspect. They started sharing what they found on social media, asking people to look for the vehicle they believe hit Hernandez.
Police have not released a detailed description of the truck and declined to confirm information the family shared. “To preserve the integrity of the ongoing investigation, we are not providing further information about the vehicle,” LBPD spokesperson Allison Gallagher wrote in an email.
Padilla and her cousin’s public pleas for information racked up tens of thousands of views and thousands of shares. They think their message resonated with locals online because “it’s been happening too much,” Padilla said.
The crash that killed Hernandez is the city’s 37th fatal traffic collision of the year. In 2025, the city recorded its highest total – 53 – in more than a decade.
Residents have voiced their frustration about unsafe streets, asking for quicker fixes for dangerous roads. Although she was crossing legally at the corner, the intersection where Padilla was hit did not have a painted crosswalk, and the white lettering for “stop” was faded and hard to see on two sides of the roadway.
Next to the intersection, family members have put up a white cross, flowers and candles with messages for “Mama Yola” – their nickname for Hernandez based on her first name Yolanda.
Before the crash, Hernandez had survived a brain tumor and stage four lung cancer, Padilla said. Despite those health challenges, Hernandez remained active. She was taking classes to learn English and would spend hours in the kitchen every holiday season making tamales.
Her grandmother had a special ability to make everyone feel loved and included, Padilla said.
“She was the type of grandma that was like, ‘If your parents say no, I’ll say yes, and they can’t argue with me,’” Padilla said.