Friday, January 16, 2015

CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL (CHP): DRIVER RAN STOP SIGN IN FOGGY CRASH THAT KILLED 5 IN JOAQUIN COUNTY



CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL (CHP): DRIVER RAN STOP SIGN IN FOGGY CRASH THAT KILLED 5 IN JOAQUIN COUNTY

Associated Press
Posted:   01/16/2015 12:12:32 PM PST Updated:   about 3 hours ago

STOCKTON -- Authorities say a crash that killed five men in Northern California farm country happened when one of the drivers ran a stop sign during thick morning fog.
A truck broadsided a van carrying seven farmworkers this week east of Stockton in San Joaquin County. The California Highway Patrol said Thursday that neither driver was licensed to drive. 

The Sacramento Bee reports (http://bit.ly/1IQruvu ) that investigators say the van failed to wait at a stop sign Tuesday at State Route 4. Visibility was less than 100 feet at the time.
Five people in the van were pronounced dead at the scene. Two people in the van and two people in the truck survived.
No criminal charges were immediately announced.

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A violent crash on a foggy farm-lined road in Stockton that killed five men Tuesday was caused when the driver of one of the vehicles ran a stop sign, according to the California Highway Patrol.

And neither driver involved the crash was licensed to drive, CHP officials said.
Seven men, all farmworkers from the Mexican state of Puebla, were on their way to work inside a silver 1998 Chevrolet Venture minivan about 6:50 a.m., when the vehicle was broadsided by a 2004 Nissan Titan pickup driving about 55 miles per hour on Highway 4, just outside of Farmington.

The crash, which launched the van onto its top and into a nearby vineyard, was caused when the van failed to wait at a stop sign on Van Allen Road before proceeding across Highway 4, CHP’s investigation found. The two men in the truck were Hector Campos, 41, and Hector Carrillo, 30, the vehicle’s driver. They were both wearing seat belts and suffered minor injuries, the CHP reported. 

Five men riding in the minivan were pronounced dead Tuesday. They were: Simei Teta-Betancourt, 29; Juan Minas-Rodriguez, 42; Oscar Macario-Nasario, 32; Antonio Ocotino-Morales, 24; and Rudolfo Carrillo, 42, according to the California Highway Patrol.
Initial reports indicated that three people survived the crash, but the CHP said Thursday that four survived: Campos and Hector Carrillo, and Euglogio Rosas and Rodrigo Ramos-Carillo, who were in the van. Rosas, 27, was wearing a seat belt, while Ramos-Carillo, 25, was not, according to the CHP. There was an initial miscount, CHP officials said, because several of the victims were transported in a single ambulance.

CHP Officer James Smith said Rudolfo Carrillo, the van’s driver, absorbed the full impact of the crash and was pronounced dead at the scene. 

It was not clear Thursday whether Hector Carrillo would face any charges for driving without a license. 

Ramos-Carillo and his five companions who died were partially ejected from the van, hanging out shattered windows on the shoulder of the highway.

All were farmworkers on their way to a day in the field, pruning grapevines, according to witnesses and firefighters who spoke with survivors at the scene.

Heavy fog on the road at the time of the crash, about 6:50 a.m., made visibility beyond 100 to 200 feet next to impossible, CHP officials said. 

The U.S. Department of Labor was also investigating the incident to determine whether the farmworkers were being transported by their employers and whether those employers had followed legal safety standards, including ensuring company vehicles are driven by licensed drivers, that they had appropriate insurance, functional headlights and enough working seat belts to accommodate all passengers.

“We enforce labor laws as they apply to migrant and seasonal workers,” said Cesar Avila, with the department’s agriculture division. “If it was a carpool situation, we would still probably meet up with the grower and just discuss the issues with them, probably wouldn’t be liable for it.”

Witnesses and firefighters who responded to the crash said Tuesday that the pickup belonged to a nearby nursery: Valley Crest Tree Company. Officials there have declined to comment.

“Unfortunately, in situations where we find out that workers are being transported, the vehicles that are used don’t always meet our standards,” Avila said. “These accidents are problematic because one life lost is too much.”

Mexican Consul General Carlos González Gutiérrez said Tuesday that consular officials had contacted the victims’ relatives and offered financial assistance to send the remains of their family members to Mexico.

Foggy conditions on Highway 4 may also have contributed to another crash early Thursday, in which a semitrailer and pickup collided along Stockton Street and Highway 4.
The driver of the pickup, who was not immediately identified, was killed on impact.

//__________________________________________________________//
CHP confirms 5 farmworkers died in foggy San Joaquin County crash
By Marissa Lang
mlang@sacbee.com
01/13/2015 9:18 AM
01/13/2015 10:42 PM 

STOCKTON – The scene that emerged from the fog Tuesday morning was a gruesome one: a gold van upside down with passengers hanging from its crushed doors and shattered windows, a red pickup truck with two injured people inside, gasoline puddles and personal belongings scattered on the muddy shoulder of Highway 4.

Five men died there, at the intersection of Highway 4 and Van Allen Road, in a violent collision about 6:55 a.m.

According to the California Highway Patrol, the van, carrying six people, was heading north, crossing Highway 4 from Van Allen Road, when it was broadsided by the pickup.
Three survived – the two people in the red pickup truck that was traveling east bound on Highway 4, and one farm worker who was riding in the van from Stockton to a day in the field, pruning grape vines. None of the men involved in the collision were immediately identified, though a spokeswoman with the Sacramento Mexican Consulate confirmed that some were Mexican nationals.

Farmington's volunteer firefighters, the first to the scene, said it was ugly, and knew immediately they would need to work fast.

"We immediately began to triage the victims," Farmington Fire Department spokesman Capt. Jeff Briggs said. 

Moises Cortes, a foreman at a farm off Highway 4, said he rushed to the scene to help firefighters speak to the wounded man who survived. He only spoke Spanish, and was dazed from the collision.

While he was trying to convey information from the survivor to emergency responders, seven ambulances arrived from nearby hospitals. The brother of one of the men in the van also came running over, Cortes said. He had been planning to meet his brother in the fields. When he saw the carnage, he began to cry.

“I told him to go ahead and cry,” Cortes said. “What more could I do? This is one of the worst accidents I’ve ever seen.”

California Highway Patrol officers said poor visibility at dawn was, at least in part, to blame.
"If there had more visibility, the drivers may have seen each other sooner," CHP Officer James Smith said. "They could have slowed down, which would have produced less injury – or they might have completely avoided the collision. ”

At the time of the crash, CHP said, visibility was about 100 to 200 feet. As firefighters cut the door off the van to remove the driver, who was wearing a seatbelt but absorbed the full impact of the collision, the fog grew denser.

"About one hour into the call, I’d say visibility dropped down to maybe 20 feet," Briggs said. “It was really bad.”


Witnesses and firefighters said the pickup belonged to a nearby nursery: Valley Crest Tree Co. Officials there declined to comment Tuesday.
As the day stretched on, news of the accident traveled to local growers, who wondered who the men were and where they were going.
An employee at the local Circle K gas-station market believed the men who were killed to be her "regular guys," a group of six Hispanic farm workers who stopped in daily for coffee and pastries before their morning shifts.
They hadn't come in Tuesday.
"They were all really good, hardworking people," Pamila Ramsey said. “I just keep thinking about their families, so many families. It’s so sad.”

Pieces of the workers' lunches scattered among glass and pieces of plastic along the highway's shoulder was all that remained once CHP cleared the scene.
Other than the driver, Smith said the van's other passengers were not likely wearing seat belts. It has not been determined if the van’s driver stopped at the stop sign on Van Allen Road before proceeding to cross onto Highway 4.
Foggy conditions are expected to continue throughout the Central Valley for the rest of the work week, according to the National Weather Service.
Fog typically forms when cold air passes over warmer water or land, especially after the ground has been soaked by rain. Though it’s been nearly three weeks since the region last saw any significant rainfall, fog also is possible anywhere near water, such as the many braided waterways of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, where Tuesday's fatal accident occurred.