Eastside shooting sends man to hospital

A Costa Mesa man was hospitalized Saturday with a pierced lung and a wound near his heart after a shooting in front of his Eastside home, authorities said.

Police said the shooting occurred when the man, 19, came to the aid of his father when he arrived home from work early Saturday, around 2:45 a.m.

When the father got to his home in the 200 block of Cabrillo Street, he found a man — described as 35 to 50 years old with shoulder length hair and a goatee — standing near the rear of his mother’s car, police said.

When the father approached the suspect, a fight ensued. The father called out for his son, who was inside the house. When the son rushed out to help, the suspect pulled out a handgun and fired, police said.

The round was full of pellets, police said, with one piece piercing the 19-year-old’s lung and another stopping near his aorta. Firefighters said he was rushed to Western Medical Center’s trauma center in Santa Ana.

Authorities believe the shooter was acting as a lookout for an accomplice who was burglarizing cars in the area. Both suspects got away. No description of the second suspect was immediately available.

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Twitter: @JosephSerna