MARCH 30, 2015
MOORE HAVEN, FLORIDA
An overloaded church van ran through a stop sign, crossed
all four lanes of a dark rural highway and nosedived into a canal, killing
eight people and injuring 10 early Monday in southwest Florida, authorities
said.
The van apparently was traveling east on State Road 78 when
it ran a stop sign at U.S. Highway 27 early Monday, authorities said. It then
crossed all four lanes of U.S. 27 and stopped in a ditch that was partially
filled with water.
No one saw the accident on the rural stretch of roadway
that's frequented mostly by commercial traffic, Bueno said. One of the
passengers flagged down a passing vehicle, whose driver called police, the
trooper said.
"They didn't see that stop sign. They shot right
through it," Glades County Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy Duane Pottorff
said. "It was a sad evening."
The van was heading back to a church in Fort Pierce, north
of West Palm Beach on the Atlantic coast, after a weekend convention in Fort
Myers, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
Eighteen people were in the 15-seat-capacity van when it
crashed about 12:30 a.m. Monday, according to the Highway Patrol.
A 911 call came in at 12:31 a.m., and deputies arrived four
minutes later, officials said. The van had gone down an 8-to-10 foot embankment
and landed in shallow water of the canal, which is lined with tall grass and
weeds.
"That's a very steep embankment, and they kind of did a
nosedive," said Lt. Gregory S. Bueno of the Highway Patrol.
The crash killed the male driver and seven passengers, four
male and three female, troopers said. Their names were not released pending
notification of their families.
The Florida Highway Patrol identified 10 other passengers
taken to four hospitals. Among them was a 4-year-old child — who was not in a
car seat, Bueno said — in serious condition. Four other adults were in critical
condition.
All the people in the van were from Fort Pierce. Outside the
Independent Haitian Assembly of God church, about three dozen friends and
family members milled around the parking lot waiting for information.
Phillipe Dorce, 34, said his father-in-law and cousin were
on the van. Dorce received a call about 1:15 a.m. and drove to the crash site.
He said he helped authorities identify bodies. "I was there trying to be a
man. But at the same time, I'm crying too," he said.
Church pastor Esperant Lexine, 57, was injured in the crash,
said his daughter, Dina Lexine Sarver, 23. In a phone interview with The
Associated Press from Tampa General Hospital, Sarver said that he had suffered
internal bleeding and that she had been able to speak with him briefly.
Nozaire Nore, 48, suffered a broken leg in the crash. With
his niece translating from Haitian Creole, Nore told Scripps Treasure Coast
Newspapers (http://bit.ly/1xsZnml ) that the driver didn't notice a curve in
the road and couldn't stop in time.
Nore said he is a migrant farm laborer who travels to New
Jersey and New York to pick apples, watermelons and other crops.
Bueno said that at the time of the crash, it wasn't foggy at
the crash scene in Glades County, west of Lake Okeechobee. There is no lighting
on the stretch of road, and the T-intersection is surrounded by farmland.
The Highway Patrol spoke briefly spoke to some survivors and
will conduct more in-depth interviews, Bueno said. A full investigation will
assess any mechanical issues with the van, he added.
On Monday morning, the van had been loaded onto the back of
a flatbed truck. The front of the van was smashed in, and the door had been removed.
Under Florida law, a Class C commercial driver's license is
required to drive any vehicle designed to transport 16 or more people,
including the driver. The driver's name in the crash had not been released.