Three die in weekend traffic mishaps

And the weekend was not free of traffic mishaps and two accidents resulted in the deaths of three people. The first occurred around eleven-thirty last Friday night between miles sixty-three and sixty-four on the Southern Highway in the Toledo District. When police arrived they discovered a four door Nissan Frontier pickup extensively damaged. Inside, twenty year old Evangel Coleman of New City Area, Punta Gorda was motionless. Police later found out that twenty-one year old Urbano Hernandez also of New City Area, Punta Gorda, was driving the vehicle from Dangriga towards Toledo with Coleman as a passenger. They stopped at the six mile junction to pick up twenty-one year old Raheen Lambey and twenty year old Felix Ack, both Belize Defense Force soldiers assigned to Toledo and a third person, Tyron Flores. But as the men reached between miles sixty-three and sixty-four they suffered a back wheel blowout and flipped several times. By the time they were transported to the Punta Gorda Town Hospital, Coleman and Lambey were dead. Police have not yet filed any charges.

The third death involved a cyclist who was killed on the Northern Highway on Sunday morning. Sixty-nine year old Vicente Rodolfo Gutierrez, a resident of San Victor village, was riding his bicycle at mile seventy-three just before ten on Sunday when he faced a Dodge Pickup that was also going north. The driver of the pickup, nineteen year old Anthony Cab of San Pedro Village, Corozal, claims that Gutierrez suddenly attempted to cross the highway in front of him and that led to the accident. The impact completely destroyed the bicycle and damaged the front of the pickup and its windshield. But it was the cyclist that was gravely hurt. Gutierrez received serious head and body injuries and was transported to the Northern Regional Hospital where he died while undergoing treatment.