14 DAY TRIAL // The wife of the driver involved in a limo fire in Northern California in May has told the press that her husband was on the phone before crashing.
As I wrote at the time, five people died and others were injured during the blaze on the San Mateo-Hayward bridge in Foster City.
The other passengers in the vehicle have come forward to describe that the driver was not reacting to them screaming at him to let them out after the fire.
"Open the door. Open the door. [...] But he didn't do anything. He was on the phone," survivor Nelia Arellano described at the time.
He was arguing with his wife and he did not pay attention to the smoke that preceded the fire. The music was also very loud, according to estranged wife Rachel "Raquel" Hernandez-Brown.
"The music was really loud. And I kept yelling, 'I can't hear you. Turn it down.' I said, 'You're not paying attention. You know, like, get off the phone. Stop calling me. [...] I'd hate to have a limo driver like you," she recalls for the San Jose Mercury News.
After the fire, driver Orville Brown panicked and did not call 911 immediately. Instead, he called his wife once more for advice.
"He was continuously calling me back. [...] I said, 'Well, what made you call me first?' He said, 'Well, I don't know, I didn't know who else to call.
"My mom, I, everyone in my family were like, gosh, what made him not call the cops right away?" she says.
It took five minutes for authorities to be alerted, and Brown explained afterwards that he was in shock and couldn't make the call.
"I'm trying to call 911 on my phone, and I'm shaking. It wouldn't dial. [...] It's total chaos," he said.