14 DAY TRIAL // Three people, two of whom were kids, have died in a car crash in Pico Rivera, California on Thursday, June 13, police reports say.
“I just heard a bang,” says witness Albert Delgado, riding a truck at the time of the crash.
“I saw bodies everywhere, so I was trying to help the kids. I stayed with one; he was breathing, but by the time they came, he stopped breathing,” he describes.
According to KABC, the driver of a Honda Civic smashed into the roadway center divider then collided with a Nissan Sentra on the 3500 block of San Gabriel River Parkway at 8:45 p.m.
22-year-old Effron Velasquez died on the spot, as did two of his passengers – 12-year-old Gilbert Enriquez and Braulio Duque, also 12. They were ejected from the car and killed, CBS Los Angeles writes.
“It's terrible,” Lt. Andrew Meyer of the Pico Rivera Sheriff's Department tells The LA Times.
“We were always around the kids. That’s why they felt so comfortable asking for a ride home,” a friend of Velasquez's recalls.
Three female passengers in the Nissan Sentra were transported to the hospital with serious injuries.
13-year-old Humberto Flores and a second child were the other passengers in the Honda. They escaped the crash with minor injuries.
“He's able to talk. He just has a little bit of road rash, a little gash. [...] He doesn't remember a lot. I was trying not to make him talk too much because he was badly injured,” Flores' godfather explains.
According to Lt. Arthur Scott of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, the driver of the Honda was speeding at the time of the crash.
Velasquez was taking the children home after their elementary school graduation, Flores' cousin, Rene Ayala, clarifies.
Gilbert Enriquez's aunt mentioned that the kids were not wearing seatbelts when the car crashed.