Mother Who Helped Save Daughter Dies

Angelica Cuevas, the Huntington Beach mother who jumped into churning seas off Laguna Beach to save her daughter on Mother’s Day, was pronounced dead late Tuesday--two days after her boyfriend died in the same rescue effort.

Family members elected to disconnect Cuevas, 26, from life support 10 hours after doctors at South Coast Medical Center in Laguna Beach declared her brain dead. Her boyfriend, Zackery Kunzler, 24, died shortly after lifeguards pulled the three of them from the ocean Sunday.

“It’s just total--everyone is just shocked,” said Stacy Rydman, 30, a co-worker and close friend of Cuevas. “She was one of those magnetic types of people that you can’t help but want to be around. She was so positive and uplifting. . . . In our eyes, the two of them are heroes. They were able to save the girl’s life.”

A memorial service for Kunzler was scheduled for 3 p.m. today at Westminster Memorial Park in Huntington Beach. Plans were being made for a service for Cuevas on Saturday.

The two had jumped into an oceanside crevice to save Cuevas’ 6-year-old daughter, Brooke Poling, who had lost her footing after a large wave rolled over the rock on which they were standing, authorities said.

Witnesses said Kunzler kept the girl afloat until a lifeguard could haul her to safety. Surging waves continued to batter Cuevas and Kunzler before lifeguards pulled them to shore. Kunzler was pronounced dead a short time later at Saddleback Memorial Medical Center. Cuevas was on life support at South Coast Medical Center until about 7 p.m. Tuesday.

The daughter was hospitalized but has been released and is staying with her father, whom friends identified as Eric Poling.

“There will be a lot of adjustments made to Brooke’s life,” said Tony Cuevas, 30, Angelica’s brother. “The only thing we can do is be here for her, supporting her . . . ease the shock as much as possible.”

He described his sister as a person who loved the beach and took delight in the warmth of people around her.

“The No. 1 thing that made her happy was that she always put [other] people before herself, and in this case that is exactly what she was doing,” he said, adding that the family feels a debt of gratitude to Kunzler for his efforts to save Brooke.

Cuevas described his sister as “a very, very happy person,” with a strong commitment to God, her daughter and, more recently, Kunzler.

The Cuevas family has started a trust fund for the girl through Home Savings of America.

For Kunzler’s family, the deaths added a new element of tragedy to their already sad memories of the day that celebrates motherhood. Kunzler’s mother lost a battle with breast cancer on Mother’s Day two years ago.

“How’s that for a crummy experience?” asked his father, Kenneth Kunzler, who traveled from his home in Fresno to claim his son’s body.

Zackery Kunzler was born in Astoria, Ore. His parents divorced when he was about 4, and he lived first with his mother in South Lake Tahoe for about six years, then with his father in the Modesto area before finishing high school in Gardnerville, Nev.

“My brother, when it comes to kids, has always had a soft heart,” said Christopher Kunzler, 20, a Navy airman stationed at Camp Pendleton. “My mom, she had a day-care center when we were growing up, and we both helped.”

Kenneth Kunzler said Zackery, as a boy, had a voracious appetite for learning and was placed in gifted and talented programs.

“They couldn’t feed him stuff quick enough,” the father said.

Zackery Kunzler skipped college, though, and moved to Orange County five years ago in search of job opportunities, his father said. He worked at an art gallery before eventually signing on with Triad Financial Corp., an auto loan company, in Huntington Beach as an auditor in November 1996.

“Zack was a very spirited young man,” said Ann Schroeder, human resources director at the firm. “Women loved him. He was just beautiful and gorgeous and fun and had a wonderful heart. That’s probably why [he and Cuevas] bonded so well. They were both warmhearted and extremely bright.”

The deaths have devastated the couple’s friends and families. The pain was particularly acute at Triad, where Kunzler and Cuevas were part of a large group of friends who routinely gathered at a nearby saloon for Friday after-work parties, and on weekends for backyard barbecues.

“Losing the two of them in this short span of time has been really quite traumatic for us,” Schroeder said. “Both were well-loved and just very young and vibrant and full.”

Last weekend, half a dozen of the friends--including Cuevas and Kunzler--traveled to San Diego for a crawfish festival, said Rydman, who worked with Kunzler as an auditor.

“People were saying today [that] we’ll have to go again next year,” Rydman said Wednesday. “But it just won’t be the same.”

Schroeder described Cuevas as “very sweet and very caring.”

“She adored her daughter,” Schroeder said. “That was the No. 1 thing in her life.”

Cuevas and Kunzler met after she joined the firm a year ago as a supervisor.

“She was one of those people who are beautiful on the inside and the outside, and it shined through with everybody,” Rydman said. “All the good qualities you could find in a person, she had. She was a great mom and a good friend. She was always there when you needed her.”

Cuevas grew up in Bellflower and moved to Huntington Beach about two months ago in hopes of raising her daughter in a more stable neighborhood and to be closer to her job, Rydman said. Mother and daughter moved in with another woman from the circle of friends at Triad, and around the corner from where Rydman lives with a young niece and her mother.

“[Cuevas’] little girl and my niece were buddies,” Rydman said. “They could walk to each other’s houses and play together.”

The elder Kunzler last spoke with his son just hours before his death.

“He called me from the office on Mother’s Day morning,” the father said by telephone from his Huntington Beach hotel room. “He was just finishing up paperwork to get a head start on Monday. He said he and Angie were going to take the little girl to the beach and take her to the tidal pools and show her the stuff.”

Hours later, he said, Laguna Beach police called to tell him his son was dead.

“Just a few hours ago, his brother Christopher and I were going through his car,” the father said, his voice breaking. “We looked in the trunk, and there was a brand new little kid’s kite. How’s that for a heart-wrenching little reminder of how the day was supposed to have gone?”