Wayward truck crashes; 6 killed
SAN PEDRO CITY— Police are looking for the driver of a delivery truck that hit 19 vehicles before crashing into a roadside bakery and a house, killing six people and injuring 14 others along the busy Santa Rosa-Tagaytay Road in this city on Saturday night. The truck, driven by Anthony Bernardo, was negotiating the downhill stretch of the road when it lost its brakes.
Police are looking for the driver of a delivery truck that hit 19 vehicles before crashing into a roadside bakery and a house, killing six people and injuring 14 others, in Santa Rosa City, Laguna province, during the weekend.
Two children were among those killed in the accident that happened around 11:30 p.m. on Saturday along the busy Santa Rosa-Tagaytay Road at Barangay Santo Domingo.
Traffic at that time was heavy with many people coming home from Tagaytay City in Cavite province and Nuvali, a popular shopping and commercial district in Santa Rosa, police investigators said on Sunday.
Supt. Eugene Orate, Santa Rosa police chief, said by phone that the truck, driven by Anthony Bernardo, was negotiating the downhill stretch of the road in Silang town, Cavite, when it lost its brakes.
The truck was headed to Cabuyao City in Laguna carrying steel bars.
“According to the (delivery) helper, he told the driver (Bernardo) to crash the truck onto something on the side of the road [so it would stop]. But the driver told him, ‘No, I can handle this,’” Orate said.
Multiple crashes
As it reached Santa Rosa, the truck hit 15 cars, two motorcycles and two tricycles, but the multiple crashes did not stop it.
It dragged one of the tricycles, which was parked on the roadside and carrying Lorelyn Rosel Sumadsad and her father.
Sumadsad’s father, Mag- daleno Sumadsad, managed to jump out but was injured, but she was pinned and dragged with the tricycle and was killed.
It was Sumadsad’s 22nd birthday.
Orate said the truck continued to run for another 100 to 250 meters and hit a bakery shop, killing Jerome Baluya, 17, and his brother, Jayson Baluya, 25.
The Baluyas lived in the bakery shop, which was owned by their family.
“The impact was so strong it smashed the concrete wall of the bakery,” Orate said.
Then the truck hit a house, killing the occupants: Juvelyn Floresco Delizo, 21, her daughter Ariane Kaye Yllera, 2, and niece Quelah Ayesha Velasco, 1.
Danilo Gison, the delivery helper, told investigators that it was only after the truck hit the house that he and Bernardo got out of the vehicle and that the driver quickly disappeared.
The police said charges of reckless imprudence resulting in multiple homicide, physical injuries and damage to property would be filed against Bernardo.