Vehicles mashed but no injuries in N. Hwy pileup
They say that lightning never strikes twice in the same place but that’s not true for traffic accidents. Mile seven on the Northern Highway was the scene of two major mishaps over the weekend, and while there was a lot of mangled metal, fortunately there were no serious injuries. The first crash apparently occurred on Friday night and while the wreckage was being removed, it caused an even bigger pile-up on Saturday morning. Jose Sosa was involved in the confusion of accident number two.
Jose Sosa, Accident Victim
“I saw a triangle which are usually utilized to give notice to drivers that there are some road works being activated ahead. So I slowed down seeing the first triangle. About fifty feet from the first one was a second one, so I slowed down much more. About a hundred feet more ahead, there was a BDF officers standing behind a BDF truck across the road, a little bit on the road. So the way it was set, the traffic coming from Belize City had to wait until the traffic from the Northern Highway stop before they could come in. The officer raised his left hand indicating for me to stop, so I came to a full stop being off on the right hand side of the road. I immediately engaged my vehicle in neutral. About two or three minutes afterwards I head a certain bang and I was being thrown off the road towards the river. While I was pushed off, I was flung forward and flung backwards aging, because I had on my seatbelt. The seat that I was sitting on ripped up, so I actually fell backwards and immediately my first reaction was to set my foot on the brake and start and start swinging my steering wheel. By doing that, when the bus continued pushing me off, because I was turning the wheel, it set my right back on the road.”
Jose Sanchez
“How many vehicle were in the pile up?”
Jose Sosa
“There was approximately four vehicles, or three excluding mine. It was a school bus, I guess from Ladyville, there was a gentleman in a brown car up north in Orange Walk and there was a yellow pickup.”
Jose Sanchez
“So what do you believe was the primary reason for this accident occurring?”
Jose Sosa
“Well, I would definitely say, and I don’t think I’m stepping on anybody’s toes, but I am telling the truth. I think that it was because of the BDF that were trying to retrieve a vehicle that was in an incident that night before. If that weren’t there the traffic would have been free flowing. By them being there, it was a sort of obstruction of the traffic because it was mainly around the curve that the accident occurred.”
Police are still trying to sort out exactly what happened at mile seven.