FISTFIGHT LEAVES MAN NEAR DEATH.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Sheriff's investigators are looking for witnesses to a fistfight that left a Lancaster man near death.

Manuel Gil, 26, was knocked unconscious during the fight with a co- worker about 4:30 a.m. Sunday in the median of Gadsden Avenue south of Avenue K, outside Gil's apartment.

``Co-workers went out for a night on the town. They got into a verbal altercation and they went out in the street to settle it,'' Detective Charles Morales said.

Gil was listed Monday in very guarded condition at Lancaster Community Hospital.

The man with whom Gil fought was not in custody, Morales said, because it appears Gil was injured in what police describe as ``mutual combat'' - a fight between two willing combatants.

``There's nothing to arrest him for right now,'' Morales said.

Gil and two co-workers, all employees at the Lancaster Home Depot building-supply store, had started arguing after Gil's car ran out of gas, Morales said.

They went to Gil's apartment to look for Gil's cell phone, then returned to the street for the fistfight. The third co-worker wasn't involved in the fight, Morales said.

The co-workers thought Gil was just passed out, but when they couldn't revive him they got his wife's car and drove him to the hospital, Morales said.

Anyone who saw the fight or has other information was asked to call Morales at the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Homicide Bureau, [phone], or the Lancaster sheriff's station at [phone].