Sharina, Mekson and Nash Fernandes

Seconds after her Toyota Prius barreled into a family of three and came to a rest inside a Santa Clara shopping center, the driver emerged from the car and begged for help.

"I went over to her and saw she was all right," said Richard Stephens, a Safeway clerk who ran to her aid in the aftermath of the Friday night crash.

But then he looked a few feet away. There lay a 3-year-old boy - dead.

"I looked down and I could see he was gone," Stephens said.

And a few feet farther, he saw two more bodies: the boy's parents, Sharina and Mekson Fernandes, immigrants from India who had been in the country just four years.

Stephens leaned down to the father "and told him everything was going to be all right, and that we had called the ambulance," Stephens said. "I don't know if he could hear me, but he was flinching. He was pretty mangled up."

It was too late.

By Monday night, stuffed animals, candles and flowers were piled high beneath the mangled remnants of an espresso stand sign near Homestead Road and Kiely Boulevard in honor of the family, all of whom died. Skid marks and deep dark grooves were visible on the asphalt a few feet away - where Nash, the couple's son, had died - apparently after being dragged.

After the 10:50 p.m. crash, Stephens said, the driver, identified by Santa Clara police as Vaciliki Papademetriou, 43, of Sunnyvale, sat on the curb. Police say her Toyota hit the family while they were walking near the intersection and then smashed through a hedge, a utility pole and the espresso sign before skidding through the parking lot, police said.

No charges had been filed against Papademetriou as of Monday night, police said. Authorities said she apparently lost consciousness during the crash and may suffered from a medical condition, which they did not disclose. She was treated and released from a local hospital. Santa Clara police spokesman Kurt Clarke said Monday that more information about the driver would be released this morning.

Monday evening, friends and co-workers of Sharina Fernandes, 26, who was teaching preschool at Monticello Academy for the past five months, came to pay their respects. Nash also attended the school.

One teacher brought her two young sons. She remembered Sharina Fernandes as a short, lively woman with a huge smile. "She was quiet and humble," said the woman, who did not want to disclose her name.

Sabu Thomas, a family friend, was one of the last people to see the Fernandeses. He said the family had been dining at his restaurant about 9:15 p.m. that night, a short distance from the crash site and also from the family's Homestead Road apartment.

Because the family has few relatives in the area, Monticello Academy is raising money to help with the funeral expenses. The school also is planning a memorial service for the family.

"She called us her second family, this is our gift to her," Monticello Principal Trinh Trinh said.

The family's only relative in the Bay Area is a cousin, Eulogio Lino Pereira of Santa Clara, who is making arrangements to return the Fernandeses' bodies to India, police said. Pereira identified the bodies Monday.

Trinh and Thomas said the couple had moved from the Indian city of Goa to the Bay Area four years ago, soon after marrying, and had Nash a year later. Sharina Fernandes previously had taught at Kidsville Preschool & Day Care in Santa Clara. Mekson Fernandes, 29, was an independent commercial truck driver.

"They came here for a better life," Trinh said. "They had hoped for a better opportunity. The only good thing is that the three of them went together. It would have just killed them to have any kind of survivor. They were a very close-knit family."

IF YOU'RE INTERESTED

Donations on behalf of the Fernandes Family Benefit Fund may be sent to Wells Fargo account No. 7038442971 or mailed to Wells Fargo, 2792 Homestead Road

Santa Clara, Calif. 95051.