Victims Of 3-Vehicle Crash Identified
BROWNSVILLE – On Monday, an accident on the Frontage Road in Brownsville left 2 individuals dead.
The location of the accident was in front of the Sunrise Plaza Mall and it happened around 3 p.m.
The police identified the 2 victims, one as 84-year-old Santiago Zarate and the other as 59-year-old Maria del Carmen Mares. The third individual sustained minor injuries in the accident.
The area where the accident occurred is a trafficked area due to which the cops succeeded in gathering individuals who saw the accident happening live.
According to Brownsville Police Chief Orlando Rodriguez, an SUV was towing a small vehicle with the help of a rope. The rope gave away as they were traveling through a congested area. The vehicles stopped in the left lane on Frontage Road along I-69E/US 77. The individual behind the wheel of the SUV and the woman driving the vehicle got out of their vehicles and attempted to secure the rope back on. A pickup truck that was going northbound hit them both from behind and pinned them between the cars.
To clear the debris and to investigate the accident, the Morrison Road exit going northbound was shut down by the police. The turnaround coming from south Frontage Road on Ruben Torres was also closed.
The person behind the wheel of the pickup truck didn’t sustain life-threatening injuries.
The accident spot was reconstructed to collect information about the accident, according to the police.
It is not confirmed whether the vehicle was being towed or where it was headed. When pulling a vehicle, a rope should only be utilized in a condition of emergency and not for a long distance. Rodriguez added, “Something that gives you a secure way of towing. A rope is not a safe way to tow a vehicle, especially in a frontage road area or expressway area. It’s extremely dangerous as you can see what happened today. There’s no such thing as towing with a white flag to bring attention to cross traffic, but we’re talking about surface streets, side streets. We’re not talking about a busy area like the frontage road near an expressway.”
The accident is still under investigation by the police.
News Source: www.KRGV.com
