FORT MYERS (Florida) NEWS-PRESS

September 30, 2008

Truck hits van, kills six in rural Glades County

By CRISTELA GUERRA and JANINE ZEITLIN

Six men were killed early Monday in one of the deadliest crashes in Southwest Florida’s history when a sand truck driver blew through a stop sign in rural Glades County and slammed into a van owned by a farm labor boss.

The men in the van were killed on impact and have not yet been identified by the Florida Highway Patrol. Four were ejected, and one was thrown up to 10 feet. The driver and a passenger wore seat belts, safety officials said.

Only two of the dead carried identification, and were possibly farm workers, said FHP patrol spokesman, Lt. Chris Miller.

“We’re scrambling around and dealing with some of the Hispanic advocates,” Miller said. “We don’t know if they were all going to work together. It’s going to be a long, drawn-out ordeal to get all six families identified.” The six men were believed to be Hispanic.

The Florida Highway Patrol said the truck, driven by Ewing Saunders, failed to stop at a stop sign. Saunders, 66, was driving a tractor-trailer hauling sand out of Ortona Sand Co. in LaBelle, five to six miles from where the accident occurred.

He was heading west and crashed into the northbound van on State Road 29 around 6:30 a.m., FHP said.

Saunders was taken to Lee Memorial Hospital and was in serious condition Monday evening, according to Kate Falzone, an administrative supervisor. The truck belonged to Venice-based West Coast Aggregate Haulers.

“I’m very sorry for the people involved,” said Todd Martin, who identified himself as the company’s owner. “He’s a very good employee. He’s been with me six years. Why, if as reports say, he ran that stop sign, is beyond me.”

The driving record for Saunders showed 12 reported offenses since 1989, including two speeding convictions.

The tan 1993 Chevrolet van owned by Francisco Saavedra, 41, an Immokalee-based farm labor contractor since 2007, was not authorized to transport farm workers and had not passed vehicle safety inspections required the Department of Business & Professional Regulation, according to its records.

On Saavedra’s record, there were seven offenses recorded since 2001, including one speeding conviction.

While the accident was among the deadliest in Southwest Florida, the intersection had been relatively safe until Monday. Only three crashes with no prior deaths and two injuries had occurred there from 2003 through 2007, said Debbie Tower, a Florida Department of Transportation spokeswoman.

“Statistically speaking, that is a low number, but any crash is certainly one too many,” she said.

Still, Grace McVay, Ortona Sand secretary, said the intersection could be safer. Noise strips that used to alert drivers they were about to arrive to the intersection have been absent since road construction began.

“Sometimes drivers are drowsy and they go straight through the stop sign,” she said. “Other times they miss their turn and roll over into the shoulder.”

Farmworkers are often vulnerable in traffic crashes because contractors don’t carry high enough insurance to protect workers and their families, or their vehicles are unsafe, farm worker advocates said.

More than five dozen farm workers escaped death in a February crash that killed a 21-year-old Fort Myers resident. As many as two dozen people were injured when a pickup crashed head-on into a bus loaded with farm workers on State Road 82.

Many are willing to accept the risk to earn money.

“You get in or you stay there. It’s taking a chance on unsafe transportation,” said Jesse Mendoza, a paralegal at Florida Rural Legal Services and a LaBelle resident who is looking into the case.

The organization will look into insurance on the vehicles and how to help the victims’ families. It may include sending bodies abroad for burial.

Given the season, the men may have been workers picking palmetto berries or planting tomatoes, Mendoza said.

“I’m just holding my heart,” he said. “We just want justice, what’s fair.”

A state law that went into effect this year requires vans used to shuttle farm workers to be equipped with seat belts for each passenger. What’s more, vehicles used to carry farm workers should have insurance up to $100,000 per seat, said Greg Schell, managing attorney at the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project.

Schell said contractors often try to get around footing steep insurance costs by calling it carpooling and not registering as a farm labor vehicle; Saavedra’s van was not registered as one.

The state needs to up paltry fines to deter that, he said.

“You want it so it’s not cheaper to violate the law. And now it is,” Schell said.

According to the state, in 2007-2008, there were 182 farm labor transportation violations, which include safety violations, paling to the 42 violations found in 2007-2006. There were 253 such violations in 2006-2005.

At Saavedra’s Wells Street home in Immokalee, the front lawn was unkempt and windows were boarded up. Noemi Vinton, 47, who lives next door, said she thought they might be migrant workers.

“I just know a lot of people live there because a lot cars are parked out front at night,” Vinton said.

A front gate outside Saavedra’s home was locked.