San Ignacio man killed by runaway van

A mechanical failure is being blamed for a death on the streets of San Ignacio. News 5’s Jacqueline Woods has the story.

Jacqueline Woods, Reporting

Shortly after eight on Saturday morning, Helen Simmons tragically lost her husband of twenty-nine years after he was knocked down and killed just across from where they lived.

Helen Simmons, Wife of Deceased

“I heard the vehicle and when I heard the noise, I came out and someone came and told me it was my husband that they knocked down right beside the park.”

Jacqueline Woods

“Did you get a chance to see Antonio?”

Helen Simmons

“No, I didn’t get to see him until I reach the hospital.”

But Simmons never did get to see her husband alive again. Seventy-year-old Antonio Emmanuel Simmons received serious head and body injuries and died while on the way to the San Ignacio Hospital. Simmons, who worked for nine years at the nearby Shell gas station, was on his way home after doing the morning shift. Simmons was about fifty yards from his house, walking alongside Columbus Park, when this van travelling down Buena Vista Road crashed into him.

Warren Simmons, Son of Deceased

“The vehicle didn’t have any brakes and it just couldn’t take the sudden ninety degree curve and went straight into the park on the opposite side and hit my father.”

Police say the driver, fifty-year-old James Fredrick Garber, a visiting American professor of archaeology, told them that he could not stop because the brakes failed. This morning, Garber appeared in San Ignacio Magistrate’s Court and was charged with driving without due care and attention, causing death by careless conduct, and operating a vehicle without proper brakes. Jacqueline Woods for News 5.

At the time of the accident ten passengers were travelling in the van, none of whom were hurt. In court this morning Garber was offered and met bail of ten thousand dollars. Simmons will be laid to rest on Tuesday following services at Sacred Heart Church.