A Deadly Accident on the Southern Highway Claims the Lives of the Brothers Archer
Jamie & Anthony Archer
Two brothers tragically lost their lives on Tuesday night on the San Antonio Road in southern Belize. Jamie and Anthony Archer were travelling along with two other persons heading to their village in a small car. The driver of car unfortunately lost control of the vehicle; it flipped multiple times causing the instant death of the siblings. Losing one is painful, but the double loss of life has brought enormous grief to the Mangar family, who today recounted the details of the horrible accident. We warn viewers that the scene of accident is graphic. News Five’s Isani Cayetano reports.
Isani Cayetano, Reporting
The anguish of losing a pair of sons to a deadly road traffic accident on Tuesday evening, has left Lupita Mangar in an utter state of disbelief. The deaths of brothers Jamie and Anthony Archer, both passengers in a Toyota Corolla that violently overturned along the San Antonio Road, severely injuring two other occupants, has devastated the family.
Lupita Palma-Mangar
Lupita Palma-Mangar, Mother of Accident Victims
“My daughter called me, that is between six or seven (o’clock), I’m not so sure of the time, and she said, “Mom, dehn bwai get eena wahn accident.” I said, “What you mean dehn bwai get eena wahn accident?” Ih seh, “Yes Ma, dehn bwai dehn buss up.” Soh I hurry, I tell ahn, “okay then I’ll find out right now.” Soh I picked up my phone and I called Anthony’s phone and when I called Anthony’s phone, the policeman answered. I said, “Who is this?” I said, “Anthony?” He said, “This is PC Alvarez.” I said, “Oh, this is Anthony’s mother, I want to know what happened.” Ih said, “Miss, I advise you to come to the hospital.”
The mother quickly gathered herself and rushed to the Punta Gorda hospital. A short while thereafter, her eldest son Glenford also received an ominous phone call informing that his siblings had been involved in an accident. He recounts arriving at the scene of the accident.
Glenford Archer
Glenford Archer, Brother of Accident Victims
“When time I reach pan di accident site, there was like vehicle parts all over the road, broken windows, reflectors, everything just scattered, shattered and the vehicle was in a horizontal position, like it flipped multiple times. But the reason why I went out there was to look for my other brother that was not amongst the crowd that was rushed to the hospital.”
Of the four persons involved in the mishap, twenty-eight-year-old Jamie Archer was unaccounted for. The lifeless body of his younger brother Anthony was en route to the hospital when Glen peeked into the pan of a police mobile.
Glenford Archer
“I reached at the hospital, I went in the emergency area, I looked around and I hadn’t seen any of my brothers. So I went to Jamie’s wife and I asked, “Where is he?” Her response was, “I don’t know, they still cannot find him. About ten to fifteen minutes after I asked her where is Jamie, the police vehicle came in with a body in the back of it. But at the time, I hadn’t recognized who was in the back, so while the vehicle was moving towards the emergency area I ran up to it and I peeped and when I peeped I noticed that it was my other brother Anthony.”
At this moment, the distraught mother was also inquiring into Jamie’s whereabouts, having seen a dead son being carted away to the hospital?
Lupita Palma-Mangar
“While we left, on our way going there was the police vehicle in front of us, not knowing that my son’s body was in the vehicle. When we reached at the hospital, a little while after that the police reached and I saw my son. I was so devastated I couldn’t take it and I cried, I bawled, I shouted and I didn’t know what to do. Then they said it was four of them that got into the accident and I said well, “Where is Jamie? Where is Jamie?” So my son reached and said they were going back to look for Jamie. So they went back with the police to the crash site, they went and after a while they came back and probably half an hour to an hour they came back with Jamie’s body dead in the trunk. I couldn’t take it, I said, “Mein, what happened?” my two sons, I couldn’t believe that both of them would have gone.”
Darian Romero & Jerry Cruz
Inside the vehicle along with them were twenty-year-old Darian Romero and seventeen-year-old Jerry Cruz. Police say that the men ran off the road and overturned upon reaching miles twelve and thirteen on the highway, near the junction of San Marcos Village.
Lupita Palma-Mangar
“This morning early, about five [o’clock], me and my husband went to see the crash site and at the back of the car, in the backseat, there was one of Anthony’s slippers and Jamie had on a white cap, because I saw him yesterday evening and the white cap was at the edge of the window in the backseat also and I told Roderick, I said, “You know something babe, I said, Anthony and Jamie were in the back of the car because the car does not belong to anyone of them, so my son will not drive what is not his.”
Romero and Cruz are both listed in stable condition at the Southern Regional Hospital. Reporting for News Five, I am Isani Cayetano.
