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'Unimaginable sorrow': California dad dies during driving lesson with his daughter

By Madilynne Medina

A California father died in a crash on Memorial Day while he was teaching his 15-year-old how to drive in Orange County, police said. 

The father, identified as 64-year-old James Politoski, was being driven by his daughter, who has a driver’s permit, Lt. Jesse Schmidt with the Laguna Beach Police Department told SFGATE. 

In a social media post, Laguna Beach police said the driver crashed through a fence from the parking lot of Gelson’s Market in Dana Point. The car then plummeted down an embankment on Coast Highway between Wesley Drive and Montage Resort Drive. The preliminary cause of the crash appears to be confusion between the brake pedal and gas pedal, Schmidt said.

Laguna Beach police arrived at the crash at around 2:45 p.m., and the father was pronounced dead at the scene. The daughter was transported to Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo with significant injuries, police said. 

As of Wednesday morning, the teenager was in stable condition at the hospital and expected to survive, Schmidt said. 

“It is always difficult when an accident leads to the loss of life—especially under circumstances where a parent was simply trying to do the right thing by teaching their child a valuable life skill,” Schmidt said in a statement. “What began as an act of care and guidance ended in unimaginable sorrow.”

The Laguna Beach Police Department is investigating the crash.