GARY | Two 18-year-old high school seniors lay dead or dying just feet from a car accident Saturday because Gary police officers did not look for them, upset friends and relatives said Saturday.

Brandon Smith and Dominique Green, both West Side High School students, were killed in a single-vehicle accident in the 2700 block of Chase Street early Saturday, according to the Lake County coroner's office. A coroner's spokesman said both men were pronounced dead at 9:30 a.m.

The Times' repeated calls to Gary police and Gary Mayor Rudy Clay were not returned Saturday.

Jacquelyn Green, Dominique's mother, said her son, Smith and two other teens had been heading south on Chase Street early Saturday morning when the driver lost control of their vehicle, smacking into the guard rail and plunging into the grassy ditch below.

The two other occupants survived the crash and were taken to hospitals for treatment, she said. They were reportedly in critical condition.

Green said Gary police told her that the survivors of the accident did not tell police their friends had been ejected from the vehicle and lay in the leafy ditch near the accident.

After getting a knock on his door at 7 a.m. from one of the survivors' mom's, Arthur Smith, Brandon Smith's father, said he went to the scene and found the bodies of Smith and Green just 10 feet from the wrecked vehicle.

"It took me all of five minutes to find the boys dead," Smith said. "They were right there, I didn't look under anything. I just seen my son, I seen my baby."

Through tears, Jacquelyn Green said Smith "had to identify my son."

Arthur Smith said the surviving teens pleaded with police to return to the site.

"They kept saying over and over, 'Please, go get my friends,'" Arthur Smith said. "They (police) did not look for them."

Mourners were still holding a vigil at the accident scene late Saturday. They said the boys might not have died if police had handled the situation properly.

A makeshift shrine of candles, flowers and a stuffed dog sat below the broken, twisted guard rails where the vehicle apparently veered off Chase Street.

John Persley, 19, said he was speechless when he learned that his good friends had died.

"I'm just real sad," Persley said. "I'm like his brother," he said of Dominique Green. "He was a big kid with a soft side."

Persley heard the news from his mother, Pam Campbell, who called Green "a sweetheart."

"He was like a big teddy bear," she said.

West Side students bearing candles signed two oversized cards in memory of their classmates, while Dominique Green's nephew gripped a white "R.I.P. Dom" balloon.

At one point, an upset Kristian Green, Dominique's 13-year-old sister, tried to confront one of the Gary officers controlling traffic at the crowded vigil.

Jacquelyn Green described her son as a "happy-go-lucky" person who "was well-loved."

Jacquelyn Green said she is not blaming anyone for her son's death. But, she said, if Brandon Smith's father was able to find the boys in a matter of minutes, police should easily have been able to do the same much earlier.

As of late Saturday night, the Smith family had heard nothing from Gary police or the city, Arthur Smith said.

"No one has contacted us about anything," he said. "Not a sympathetic phone call - nothing at all.

"I would like to know why they didn't perform any type of thorough search. Why didn't they take heed to these boys' words that there were other people down there?"

Times staff writer Chas Reilly contributed to this report.