Since moving from India for a better life a decade ago, Aman Khanna rarely stopped working.
With three daughters and a wife to support, the 58-year-old Natomas man shuttled daily between two jobs.
Friday night, it ended in an instant.
As Khanna drove to his night job as a hospital security guard just before 10 p.m., he was killed, police said, by a drunken, unlicensed 16-year-old driver. The teen reportedly blew a red light on Cottage Way at Fulton Avenue at 80 mph – double the speed limit – crashed into Khanna's vehicle and then ran away from his victim's smoldering car.
California Highway Patrol officials say the youth was arrested shortly after the crash at his home and booked at Sacramento County Juvenile Hall on suspicion of gross vehicular manslaughter, felony DUI and felony hit-and-run.
Khanna leaves a wife, Shashi, and three daughters, Priyanka, 21, Palak, 11, and Payal, 9.
And a life unfinished.
"We couldn't even say goodbye to him," said Priyanka Khanna, a part-time American River College student and part-time worker.
Khanna lived a simple life, his daughter said. He bought little for himself, but would call from work to see if his wife or daughters needed him to bring something home, and to make sure everyone got home safely from school and work.
He and his wife recently earned enough to make a down payment on a house in North Natomas, and he was proud about that, but worried, too. To pay the mortgage, he worked days as a security guard with the state of California and nights as a security guard at Kaiser Hospital on Morse Avenue.
"He would work from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., then he would sleep some and go to work at noon and come home at 6 p.m.," his daughter said. "He never got a full night's sleep."
Friday night, Khanna's supervisor called the family, saying Khanna hadn't arrived at work, and wondering if he had gotten a flat tire. Khanna didn't carry a cell phone. The family hoped that all was well when the supervisor didn't call back.
The next morning, his daughter awoke to find a 2 a.m. phone message from the county Coroner's Office.
"We're in shock," she said Sunday.
She wants to know what the other driver was thinking.
"I don't understand why he drove without a license, and why did he drive so fast?" she said. "Did he even think that there could be someone he could kill? Then he tried to run away, leaving my dad there."
The family wonders what will happen to the other driver. Whatever happens, though, the young woman said, "it won't bring my father back."
Call The Bee's Tony Bizjak, (916) 321-1059.
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