A distraught husband, three daughters, dozens of friends and hundreds of students are trying to come to grips with the death of Elisa Gigliotti.
A Suzuki racing bike screaming at 80 mph in a 25-mph zone slammed into Gigliotti on Oct. 4 as she was leaving her job at Long Beach City College, igniting a fireball inside her Ford Escort.
Gigliotti, a professor who taught Spanish and Italian at three local community colleges, was pulled from the burning wreckage in front of the college by two fellow instructors. But she was already covered with second- and third-degree burns on her face, chest, arms and legs -- more than half her body. After 30 days, she died at the burn unit of the Torrance Memorial Medical Center.
"It is not uncommon to see these kinds of accidents with motorcycles, particularly high-powered super bikes," said Raymond Dennison, the Long Beach detective who investigated the crash. "The whole function is to go as fast as they can."
In the last seven years, motorcycle fatalities have more than doubled nationwide. In 2005 alone, fatalities were up another 13%. The carnage only partly reflects the increasing popularity and growing registration of motorcycles.
In the Long Beach crash, the Suzuki GSX-R 1000 bike was operated by Raj Boren, a 21-year-old student at the college, who died instantly.
According to eye witnesses, Boren accelerated with an open throttle from an intersection near the crash site. Dennison said his estimate of 80 mph at the time of impact was conservative. Boren possibly was exceeding 100 mph. The accident report puts the primary blame on Boren's speed.
The force of the collision lifted Gigliotti's car off the pavement, moved it 15 feet and rotated it 90 degrees. The point of impact was the passenger door, which was pushed in past the centerline of the vehicle. During the crash, the motorcycle's gas tank ruptured, filling the car with atomized fuel that exploded.
"I don't understand how something that unsafe can be on the road," said Lorenzo Gigliotti, who married the Italian-born Elisa 32 years ago when both were teenagers. "I look at how they market these things. That is a racing bike. It doesn't have any purpose to be on the street. It is a land torpedo."
Elisa Gigliotti was a well-liked optimist, full of energy. "We are taking it one day at a time," said her husband, a web designer who since the crash has created www.ourlisa.com. "Nothing is the same."
