California crash: At least 13 people dead in horror collision with gravel truck
CALIFORNIA hospital officials shared at least 13 people died following a horrific collision today.
California: 13 people killed in car crash near El Centro
An SUV with 25 people on board and a semi-truck carrying gravel in a trailer truck collided on State Route 115 near El Centro, California today. Judy Cruz, director of El Centro Regional Medical Centre, told reporters around 12 people died at the scene.
The incident took place at 06:15AM PST (2:15PM GMT) on Tuesday.
Authorities said the dead included some Mexican citizens aged 20 to 55 with the injured aged 16 to 55.
One more person died at the hospital, according to the director, with three other patients rushed to different medical centres in San Diego.
The truck driver suffered minor injuries from the horror crash.
Police say the vehicle drove directly into the path of the truck, which had a full load of gravel.
Highway Patrol Border Division Chief Omar Watson told reporters: “At this point, it's unknown whether or not the
Expedition stopped at the stop sign, but it did enter the intersection in front of the big rig.
“Subsequently the big rig collided with the left side of the Ford Expedition.
"Obviously that vehicle is not meant for that many people.
“It's unfortunate that number of people were put into that vehicle, because there's not enough safety restraints to safely keep those people within the vehicle.
“There were numerous people that were ejected into the roadway as a result of this collision."
A spokesman for Border Patrol, Macario Mora, told the Associated Press that the immigration status of the victims was being investigated, suggesting they could be farmworkers involved in harvesting winter greens in the mainly agricultural area.
Adolphe Edward, chief executive officer of El Centro Regional Medical Centre, added: “The patients are going through a little bit of a difficult time as you can imagine.”
He then said: “This was a major accident. We are aware that children were involved in this accident.
“I want to address an issue upfront with everybody: We don’t use the term ‘undocumented’ in the hospitals.
“To us, these people that came to us are patients.”