San Joaquin County, CA : Two Martinez residents died in a head-on crash on a rural stretch of Highway on Sunday night, March 13, 2016
Two Martinez residents died Sunday night in a head-on crash on a rural stretch of Highway 4 that also left three of their children injured.
Though the couple's identities had not yet been publicly confirmed Monday afternoon, friends say the couple were Roberto Bolanos, 48, and his 45-year-old wife, Maria Bolanos. They died at the scene of the accident on Highway 4, about a mile east of the Old River Bridge in San Joaquin County, near Discovery Bay, California Highway Patrol spokesman Officer Khalid Rashid said.
The couple's SUV, headed west at 11:22 p.m. Sunday from a visit to family members in Stockton, wound up in a drainage canal after an eastbound pickup truck drifted into their lane, Rashid said in a statement. The SUV swerved to the right to avoid the oncoming pickup, but the two vehicles collided, and the SUV landed upside down in the canal, Rashid said.
The driver of the truck, a San Pablo resident, went to San Joaquin General Hospital in French Camp, near Stockton, with major injuries, Rashid said.
The children, ages 10, 9 and 2, survived the crash and went to Sutter Hospital in Tracy Sutter Tracy Community Hospital with minor injuries. Another adult passenger also survived with apparently minor injuries.
Some media outlets reported that bystanders pulled the children to safety from the canal, but the CHP did not confirm that on Monday.
The driver of the truck needed to be cut free with hydraulic tools before he was taken by ambulance to a hospital.
The CHP was trying to find out why the pickup truck drifted into the oncoming lane.
Gerardo Gutierrez has been best friends with Jose Bolanos since both were 7 years old; both are now 25. Jose Bolanos is the oldest child of Roberto and Maria Bolanos. Lili, 21, is the Bolanos' other child.
The Gutierrez family and the Bolanos family have been neighbors a long time, first at an apartment complex off Pacheco Boulevard in the Vine Hill area of unincorporated Martinez, and for the past eight years or so on Monterey Avenue, also outside Martinez city limits.
Gerardo Gutierrez spent a lot of time at the Bolanos house next door.
"Their parents were like my second parents; they've always looked out for me," Gutierrez said Monday, choking back tears. "They were the most loving people ... they would have complete strangers to their house, let them stay, feed them and they would let people feel at home in their home."
Roberto Bolanos was a construction worker, Gutierrez said, and Maria Bolanos worked in housekeeping.
No one was home at the Bolanos house midday Monday when neighbors Isaias and Bertha Gutierrez -- Gerardo Gutierrez's parents -- and two other friends walked over with a leaf blower and rakes to clean up the yard.
"I have to clean it off, the family will be coming, there will be flowers put here," Isaias Gutierrez said.
Ten-year-old Alondra Garcia, of Martinez, and her father, Fabian, came by the Bolanos house Monday afternoon. Alondra is good friends with 10-year-old Alex Bolanos, one of the three children injured in the crash. Alondra said the Bolanos family is like family to her, too, and she spent a lot of time with them.
She hadn't seen Alex -- a classmate at Las Juntas Elementary School, where Alex and Ivan Bolanos, 9, attend classes -- by early Monday afternoon but had some words for him when she does.
"Your parents are in a better place, and your friends are all here for you," Alondra said. "You're going to be OK."
Fabian and Alondra Garcia joined in the leaf-raking effort. After about 10 minutes, they gathered up the leaves and walked away.
Source :
Martinez couple killed in Highway 4 crash near Discovery Bay, children injured