Weekend accidents claim 4 lives, injures others
There were four serious accidents over the weekend. On Friday evening a seven-year-old girl from Colombia Village in Southern Belize was struck by a Toyota Hilux. Police say Zoe Nesbitt was attempting to cross the road when she was hit by the truck, sustaining fatal head and body injuries. The driver has been detained pending charges, among them driving with an expired driver’s permit.
In the Orange Walk District, a youth from Shipyard was killed after he was thrown from a motorcycle. David Penner, eighteen, and Abram Braun, sixteen, left for Hillbank around seven Sunday night. When they failed to return, Penner’s father went looking and found his son in a dazed state some four hundred feet from the bike which had skidded off the road. Abram, who had not been wearing a helmet, received severe head and body injuries and was pronounced dead on arrival at the Northern Regional Hospital.
In yet another accident, this one in Ladyville, two men lost their lives: Thirty-four year old Elvin Espinoza and thirty-three year old Brigidio Jimenez. The men and another passenger, Isaiah Samos, were travelling in a G.M.C. Jimmy when it overturned between miles eleven and twelve on the Northern Highway. Espinoza and Jimenez, who were not wearing seat belts, were thrown from the vehicle and died on the spot, while Samos suffered only a broken leg. According to the police, Espinoza had been driving the vehicle and somehow lost control causing it to overturn. The Espinoza family, however, told News 5 that they do not believe he was driving and that he had gone on the road to look for an auto part at a nearby junk yard. The family says they believe reports that the men may have been drinking at the time of the incident. Samos, who is the only person to have survived the crash, is the only one who can say what exactly transpired, but after he was transported to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital he was either released or checked himself out. News 5 would like to thank Derrick Olivera for providing us with footage from the accident site.
Another accident, this one on the Northern Highway, occurred at six Sunday morning. It has left one young man, David Matus, hospitalised in a serious condition. The ordeal is all the worse for his family since his sister died in a car crash a few years ago. News 5 went to the scene this morning, and to the K.H.M.H.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
Lionel Castillo and five passengers were travelling from Orange Walk Town to Belize City in his green Mitsubishi Montero, but somewhere between miles twenty-one and twenty-two, Castillo reportedly lost control of the vehicle after one of the rear wheels suffered a blow out.
The bang woke up eighteen-year-old Christopher Aguilar, who was sleeping in the back seat. Aguilar says as the vehicle started to swerve across the highway that is when one of the front tires also blew.
Christopher Aguilar, Victim, Traffic Accident
“When the front wheel burst the car flipped. When the car flipped I was the first one out of the vehicle because I was flown out. By the time I was on the ground I saw the vehicle coming towards me, so I ran. When I ran I [became] unconscious and I woke up in the ambulance. That is all I remember.”
Twenty-five year old David Matus, who was wearing a seatbelt, was in the front passenger seat. As the vehicle flipped over several times, he suffered a serious head injury and was taken in an unconscious state to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital.
This morning, he began to respond to his mother’s voice but remains in a critical condition. Sofia Matus says it’s hard looking at her son in his present condition because thirteen years ago she lost her daughter Maritza after the vehicle she was travelling in, crashed into a tree by mile eight on the Northern Highway. Today, she is hopeful that her son will make a full recovery.
Sofia Matus, Mother
“Yes, I have been talking with him and David told me that he has a terrible headache. The doctors have examined his head and the CAT Scan reveal that his skull was not fractured, but he is suffering from several lacerations he received to the head and some swelling.”
The trail of debris left alongside the highway tells you just how frightening the tumble must have been for all the occupants who are lucky to have survived.
The driver, Lionel Castillo, received only minor injuries.
