Belmopan Man Dead in Orange Grove Crash

Marlon Jose Moran Avila

The Moran Avila family in Belmopan is tonight still grappling with the death of their loved one, who perished in a road traffic accident on Friday night on the Hummingbird Highway. News Five’s Duane Moody reports.

Duane Moody, Reporting

Thirty-eight-year-old Marlon Jose Moran Avila was heading south from Belmopan towards Dangriga when he crashed into an orange orchard on just after crossing the bridge and taking the curve at mile twenty-one. He was travelling in a silver Isuzu D-Max pickup when he lost control of the vehicle and it flipped several times after slamming into an orange tree.

ASP Fitzroy Yearwood, Communications Director, Belize Police Department

“Investigations have so far revealed that he was driving at an excessive speed when he lost control of his vehicle overturned in that orchard and unfortunately lost his life.”

Avila was pinned inside the vehicle and died on the spot. The jaws of life had to be brought in to assist with extricating his body from the extensively damaged vehicle. Among the debris at the scene were over half-a-dozen of beer bottles, some unopened. While Assistant Superintendent Fitzroy Yearwood could not confirm whether Avila had been drinking, it is believed that speeding was involved.

ASP Fitzroy Yearwood

“I wouldn’t want to go deep into that because like I said, it is only the initial investigation, but we have seen a rise of these sort of accidents on especially the Hummingbird Highway and now the Southern Highway, where I believe the road condition has been improved and people are taking advantage of it. Unfortunately, if you want to speed, you should try to do that at a race track because when you are on a highway, driving without due care and attention is very serious. And we have seen where a lot of people have become victims because of this type of behaviour when driving. I am not saying, in particular, the Moran incident, but we have seen over the past month or so where we have quite a number of accidents between Belmopan all the way down to Toledo.”

Fitzroy Yearwood

One resident says that in the past few months this is the third accident to occur in that area; this incident though was fatal.  ASP Yearwood makes an appeal to drivers.

ASP Fitzroy Yearwood

“We want to ask drivers, while you are out there, let’s be responsible. Drive with due care and attention and let’s drive within the speed limit. It is important because the makers of these vehicles and the builders of these highways, these engineers, know why they recommend certain speed limits for towns or within the city or for the highways. We need to abide by these rules and we can hopefully reduce these sort of incidents and maybe even save our own lives.”

Moran Avila’s family was too distraught today to make a comment on the incident, but they are awaiting information from police as to when the post-mortem will be conducted on his body. Duane Moody for News Five.