public safety

Woman dies in accident

In a freak mishap, a woman was buried under tons of sand that fell out of a truck.

The accident happened on the Autopista, and is the second fatal accident there in about a month.

ANA RENTERÍA/LA PRENSA

Fatality: Firefighters and police officers begin clearing the site of an accident on the Autopista Tuesday in which a woman was killed. The accident involved seven vehicles.967312

Octavio Martínez had never dug so hard in his life. But in the end, there was too much sand.

Martínez was trying to free Jacqueline Vásquez, who was trapped after tons of sand were accidentally dumped on her car in a freak accident yesterday on the Autopista near Rod Carew Stadium.

Afterward, Martínez said he was "frustrated," and said that if he had had more help, he might have been able to save the woman.

"I grabbed her arm," he said. "I told her that we were going to get her out."

The accident happened at about 8 a.m., police said. It was caused by a truck that was parked on the road after its engine started to overheat. At least seven vehicles were involved in the accident.

The driver of the truck, Alexis Batista, had left his tractor-trailer parked on the road to get water for the engine.

According to witnesses, the truck started to slide backwards down the steep slope. The truck was hit by a Nissan Patrol driven by Tak Sant Cheung.

The truck tipped over, spilling tons of sand on to a car with Vásquez and her husband, Boris Ortega, inside. The sand also dumped on to a Toyota driven by Caesar Alcedo, destroying its front end.

José Casis, who was driving a Kia, said that he narrowly missed being covered with sand himself.

The accident closed the Autopista for several hours. After the body was removed, police began collecting evidence and examining the crash site. The investigation is likely to center on whether the truck was overloaded, and how it started sliding out of control into oncoming traffic.

It is the second major accident in that stretch of road within the past few weeks.

In December, eight members of a government softball team from Aguadulce were killed when the van they were riding in was hit by a garbage truck. The truck, which was returning to Panama City from a garbage dump near the baseball stadium, crossed into the path of the van.