PALM BEACH POST

Life still unsettled for migrants who survived crash of van

By Alan Gomez

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Monday, August 30, 2004

FORT PIERCE — Inside a small three-bedroom apartment in Fort Pierce, ignored each morning by thousands of working-age migrants heading out for a grueling day picking fruit in the fields, five broken men pass the days without so much as a walk to the other end of the apartment.

The furnishings are sparse: two tattered couches, a dining room table that seats only four, one phone on the unmopped floor and a line of ants creeping in from a crack in a window.

There, the men spend most of their time looking after one another. It's been nearly five months since their work van, filled with 19 migrant workers, flipped over on Interstate 95, killing nine of them.

But as the other 10 have learned, the thrill of survival didn't last long.

None of the men is working. Some are still in hospitals, rehabilitating the bones that were broken and organs that were bruised when they were sent careening into the median, their van flipping four times.

But there has been progress.

Samuel Navamaya, the youngest of the group at 17, can now grip a soda can with his left hand.

In the crash, one of the bones in his left forearm tore out of his skin near his elbow. His humerus, the upper-arm bone, tore out near the shoulder. His left collarbone was smashed.

His left arm is a collection of metal rods and screws, a temporary support that doctors tell him will be removed someday. That day is far off, though, so he beams about his newfound gripping abilities.

"But," he said, turning his eyes to his hand to concentrate hard enough to lift it to his lap, "I can't pick anything up."

As they expected, the fuss over their fatal van crash has died down. There are no longer people lining up to bring them food, no longer calls from attorneys trying to cash in on the potential legal windfall.

Most of the men, and the families of those who died, are signed on with attorneys. In the past month, the first lawsuits were filed in Palm Beach County, naming as defendants the driver of the van, Salvador Leon; the owner of the farm where they were working, Circle H Citrus; and the manufacturer of the van, Ford.

A lawsuit by every survivor and the families of the victims is possible, if not assured.

The nearly $120,000 raised by local groups has reached the hands of those whose injuries are healing and of the grieving families back in Mexico.

About the only thing that hasn't ended is the pain. It's growing.

Martin Arguelles Rodriguez fell flat on his back on the hard asphalt that day.

"The doctors tell me everything is fine," he said, sitting upright next to his roommates, who are slumped in the deep sofa. "Then why does it hurt until four in the morning? I feel I'm not going to end up very good."

Even worse for Rodriguez are the dreams he has when he finally does get to sleep.

His mind takes him back to the day of the crash, when there was an eerie sense of joy among the men who ended up dead. They seemed to be more playful that day, kicking one another and frolicking in the groves, which they usually resented.

"They were acting like children," said Gildardo Soto.

It's there that Rodriguez sees Omar Ramirez, 24, who died that night.

"I talk to him," Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez shakes his head when asked what they talk about, explaining that it's between them. But he raises his head and says: "He was such a charismatic man. He had his whole life ahead of him. He had just bought a truck for his wife back in Mexico. He was ready to go back."

He stops talking, looking down to the floor.

"This crash needs to serve for something. So that tomorrow it doesn't happen again."

The sequence of events

Nobody is quite sure what caused the accident, but the survivors all remember one thing.

Just as the sun was coming down on April 1, their Ford Econoline van was speeding southbound on Interstate 95 when they all felt a harsh jerk. Maybe a slam on the brakes, maybe a quick tug on the wheel.

Whatever happened, Leon, who was also their crew chief, lost control and the van went on a series of four rolls into the median.

Witnesses said that each time the van landed, bodies came flying out.

While such violent impacts are often clouded in a person's mind, most of the men remember precisely what happened next.

The banging and crunching screeches of the van came to an abrupt stop, followed by a brief silence. Then, from the bodies strewn across the median's grass and highway's pavement came a horrible blend of groaning, screaming and pleading for help.

All were rushed to hospitals along the coast. Seven men died that night. Two more died within weeks.

After undergoing all that trauma, watching their brothers and close friends dying along the pavement, a van was the last thing any of the men wanted to see.

But somehow, that's exactly what came to pick them up as they were discharged from area hospitals.

Soto remembers being taken outside in a wheelchair and seeing the van, wondering whether to ask for a taxi instead. Embarrassed, he got on.

"Every tap of the brakes...," he said, looking away, shaking his head.

One by one, they came back to the apartment.

For Rosario Perez, the return home may have been hardest.

Brothers sought success

Perez is a softspoken man who manages to work his family into any conversation.

He came from Chiapas, Mexico's southernmost state, nearly two years ago and has been sending money back to his large extended family back home.

After seeing the success of their big brother, Isaias and Edin Mauricio made the dangerous trek to Fort Pierce to try for the same.

They reached Perez's apartment in November and moved in with him. He got them a spot on his regular crew, and they quickly proved capable of the work.

The three slept in one cramped room, where all their clothes seemed to merge into one large pile.

That's why Perez couldn't sleep in his room that night. Both his brothers died in the crash, and he couldn't bear to stay in there. It took him several nights before he could.

"I couldn't stop thinking, 'Why did he die? I'm so much older than him,' " Perez said of Isaias, 27. "Or, 'Why did both my brothers die? Why not me? They have so much more to live for.' "

When trying to answer such questions, many of the men turned their thoughts to the man behind the wheel.

As Leon spent weeks recovering from his own wounds, many people were busy scrutinizing his every move that day.

The Florida Highway Patrol cited him for an improper lane change, to which he pleaded no contest and paid a $150 fine. Prosecutors investigated whether Leon was criminally liable but found there was not enough evidence to say he was driving recklessly.

While sitting in their living room one recent afternoon, the survivors were asked what they thought of Leon.

Silence.

Was he to blame for the crash? Was he to blame for the deaths?

Nothing.

Finally, after several of the men raised their heads enough to make minimal eye contact with one another, Soto spoke up.

"I don't know if he caused the crash or not. Who knows? God knows," he said. "I don't have any ill feelings toward him. On the contrary, he treated us very well."

"I didn't want to be mad at him," Perez said. "He was a good chief. He treated us good. But involuntarily, I have to admit I was mad at him."

Rodriguez said: "In this life, you have to learn to forgive people for their mistakes. He didn't intend to do it. I can't hold anything against him."

Attorneys blame driver

Ask the attorneys representing the 18 passengers in the van and Leon is definitely to blame.

That is why Leon is one of three named defendants in the lawsuits already filed, and he is expected to be named in all the other suits.

But John DeLeon, the former head of the American Civil Liberties Union in Miami and now an attorney working with the Mexican consulate, concentrates more on Circle H and Ford when talking about the lawsuits. He represents the family of Jose Luis Garcia Pichardo and expects to file their lawsuit in the next few weeks.

Circle H owner Jorge Pantuso, who sits on the Florida Citrus Commission, has been fined $38,000 by the U.S. Department of Labor for the crash. Pantuso is appealing the fine, and the case is ongoing.

State records show that since the crash Pantuso has purchased three school buses, widely regarded as being safer than the Ford Econolines for transporting large numbers of people. That, DeLeon said, is tantamount to an "admission that what they were doing previously was dangerous."

"If it weren't," DeLeon said, "you would not be changing the equipment or modes of transportation."

Thinking about Mexico

For those who survived, how they get to work is a question they are far from considering. More pressing for them is the question of if, and how, they should go back home to Mexico.

Samuel Navamaya, the 17-year-old, left his home in Chiapas just last year to join the crew. He said his send-off was not a joyous one. Instead, "my parents told me, 'Don't leave. Don't leave.' "

Now, doctors tell him it will be at least a year before he goes back to work, if he ever does at all. The insurance checks have been coming in, and his medical visits have all been taken care of so far.

But he's not sure he'll be able to get back to carrying around giant boxes of fruit, with a left arm that can't even lift a pencil now.

"My family is worried," he said. "I'm worried."

Martin Arguelles Rodriguez thinks back to the days just before he left in search of the American dollar.

Many in his hometown of Veracruz had left for the U.S., sending back cash and fantastic stories of the how much their lives had blossomed since leaving the impoverished city.

"They tell us fantasies," Rodriguez said. "After you get here, you realize that in those stories there's a little bit of idealism and only a little bit of reality."

Adaias Velazquez Rodriguez, at just 18, is not sure whether he'll recover enough to get back to the farms. So he's not sure whether to head back to Mexico.

"Who knows?" he said. "I'm still young."

For the older men, though, that's not an option.

Perez, at 47, is damaged goods now in an industry that demands grueling physical labor.

His doctors tell him he'll be able to get back out there someday.

Perez chuckles at that thought, painfully raising his hands before he gives up and gently plops them back down in his lap.

"I'm not so sure about that."