Multiple Injured in Highway Crash Near St. Matthew’s Government School

Several persons were injured in a highway collision this afternoon on the George Price Highway, directly in front of the St. Matthew’s Government School, just outside Belmopan.  The incident occurred between a busito and a grey Kia sedan, reportedly driven at the time by a police officer.  Walter Cortez Junior was reportedly picking up a passenger when the cop crashed into the back of the busito.  Our correspondent, LJay Wade, was on the scene of the incident at around four o’clock this evening.  Here is a snippet of his report from the accident scene.

Ljay Wade, Belmopan Correspondent: “At around three o’clock we received the tip of the accident but despite that happening an hour ago traffic is still backlogged. Now if I turn my camera to the right you can see a long line of traffic as the officers are still trying to get  this vehicle off the road and that’s the same as well to my left there are a lot of long lines of traffic unable to move because this vehicle is in the center  off the road. On the right side is a busito who was making its way to the Belmopan market, you know just for his normal run of the day activities. Now when he was on his way to Belmopan. He stopped right here on your screen that you can see.  He stopped at mile 38 to pick up a woman and while he was stopped and while she was attempting to get into the busito, this gray  vehicle here, this gray Kia just crashed into the back of the busito. As you can see the front of the Kia is just completely damaged. So is the back of the busito. From what I’ve been able to understand by some of the people here is that when Mr. Chavez stopped for her she was opening the door. And as she opened the door, that is when the Kia slammed into the back of the busito and pushed the busito further up and the woman got trapped, her arm got trapped in the door. So when the busito was pushed, she also went along with the vehicle and received some serious injuries. She was unconscious when they took her to the hospital.”

Love News also spoke with Cortez’ mother, Elida Gomez who says she suspects that the driver of the car was under the influence of alcohol.

Relative: “When I reached here to the place I saw the van flipped over with it’s wheels on top a small taxi which was a police officer driving the taxi and he came, both of them were going towards Belmopan and my stepson he drove out the highway to pick up a passenger when the taxi came behind and just crashed into him and made him turn over and he took the lady that he was going to pick up he took her with him in the van like turned over with her and then we had some passengers in the busito and some of them got hurt and all of them were taken to the Belmopan hospital along with my stepson. My stepson he hurt his back and his arm and he is saying that his chest is hurting and the passengers one of hem broke his hand and the other ones are the same saying that they have chest pains.”

Reporter: What was going through your mind when you received the call that your stepson got in an accident ? 

Relative: “I thought the worst thing for cases like this. I thought the worst because I didn’t know he turned over until I reached the scene and I saw and I was frightened.”

Reporter: So you were telling me that you believe it’s a police officer that was driving and he was under the influence. What do you expect to come out of this ? 

Relative: “Well I hope they do his urine test because I don’t know. But it’s clear that he has the fault because he hit him from behind and we can see from where he started to break and we have a speed bump here so he was coming at a high speed and still ended up catching the busito from the back.”

According to Gomez, her 32-year-old stepson has been in the busito business for some ten years