HAYWARD — A preschool teaching assistant was waiting for a bus to take her to work here when an Antioch man’s car crashed over the curb, killing her.

Police now say that 25-year-old Lydia Guerra was the victim of the driver’s failed suicide attempt, in which he simply closed his eyes and accelerated into what happened to be in his path: a parked vehicle, three city trees, a traffic signal pole and some garbage cans.

But the driver, identified in court records as 36-year-old Kelvin Leovander, survived the horrific crash. Now he’s been charged with vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, as well as attempting to leave the scene of the Feb. 10 collision on the 300 block of West Winton Avenue in Hayward.

Leovander has been released on $85,000 bail, court records show. Police said at t

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