Posted on 05/05/2007 8:34:25 AM PDT by TheDon
Lori Coble beamed as she posed for the camera with her husband and their three small children. Katie was still a baby, perched on Lori's hip. Kyle and Emma – in matching white shirts, jeans and flip-flops – grinned as they crowded on their dad Chris' lap.
"Kyle, Katie and Emma – the crazy monkeys" as the Ladera Ranch family's Web site proclaimed. The kids grew up so fast.
The dream was abruptly shattered about 1:10 p.m. Friday when a big-rig slammed into the back of the family's 2006 Chrysler Town & Country minivan on the southbound Santa Ana (I-5) Freeway north of Oso Parkway.
The three Coble kids were in the back of the minivan, strapped into car seats and booster seats. Lori was driving. Grandmother Cynthia Maestri was in the front passenger seat.
Two-year-old Katie and 5-year-old Kyle were rushed to Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo. Katie died just before 2 p.m. Four-year-old Emma died minutes later at Saddleback Memorial Hospital in Laguna Hills, California Highway Patrol officer Katrina Lundgren said.
....
CHP investigators spent hours questioning the driver, Jorge Miguel Romero, 37, of Apple Valley, who said he saw the traffic backed up, applied the brakes but couldn't stop in time.
Fontana-based leasing company Aurora TRL, which owns the truck, did not return calls for comment.
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
if he turns out to be illegal, president bush ought to be sent this picture, this is what is happening out in the trenches that he doesn’t appear to care about (his fellow americans-legal) or want to protect
My heart breaks for this family. My son and his young family live in this area. I cringe every time I’m on that freeway. It’s like Daytona.
Get used to seeing more of this.....
Our Congress is working their asses off getting Mexican trucks and drivers cleared to be driving the Freeways to your neighborhood....
Russian roulette makes more sense than allowing THOUSANDS of trucks with undetermined safety being driven by Mexicans with undetermined qualifications — hauling only God knows what into the country......
All goods should be stopped at the border and goods transfered onto inspected American trucks with American qualified drivers....or put onto American trains..
he could be here illegally... or he could be here legally and named after his father...
I doubt it. I haven’t seen anything in any of the report to indicate such. He did have a criminal record, though.
http://www.sgvtribune.com/ci_5802830?source=most_viewed
May the little ones rest in peace and may God protect and comfort the family who are left.
Here’s an interesting article of how James Mosqueda, the driver of the truck that melted the freeway, has apparently turned his life around:
http://www.dailydemocrat.com/news/ci_5801301
I don't believe so. Nothing that I saw indicated that was the case.
I know that story was buried immediately except to say that he had had around 50 violations in the past 3 years. Driving an 18 wheeler.
IIRC, the truck had been issued that many citations against it. Nothing in the articles that I read reported specifically that he was driving the truck when they were issued. I'd suspect that many of those citations were issued for maintenance violations.
IIRC, he did have a criminal record, though. I don't recall if it was for driving violations or criminal ones.
I join in prayer for the family and loved ones.
How long have you been a memeber of the Mafia? Sorry if my profiling upsets you.
I don’t know what to say. I can’t imagine what this family is going to go through or how they can survive this. I hope they have some sort of faith that can help them.
Our country has a big problem with illegals.
However conservatives here at FR have their own problem if we quickly ASSume that every person here with a spanish name is an illegal from Mexico!
Critics of FR are quick label us racists when they see a post like this.
The driver may be a US citizen and until proven otherwise doesn’t deserve to be blasted for being an illegal.
If you want to blast him for something, blast him for his poor ability to drive.
And please, try to clean up your act.
Horribly sad. This story will linger with me.
I think you have to factor in the job. I’ll wager there is a high rate of illegals in trcuk driving. Many dispatchers have huge signs up for drivers.
sw
I agree. We’re near Mexico, so naturally most illegal immigration will be from there.
However, there’s a lot of folks here on FR who simply hate Hispanics (sometimes because they consider them “not Christians” because the majority of Hispanics are - technically - Catholics). I don’t want to be around people like those FR posters, and I stopped my monthly contribution because it seemed to me that we were being taken over by the Aryan Brotherhood or some other bunch of hate-non-WASPs group.
The hideous crash we had in Florida - where a driver rear-ended a van full of kids and 7 of them were killed - was caused by a local black driver. Does that mean all black truckers are bad? No, this guy had several prior convictions and (IIRC) even one suspension - but the company still let him drive.
Somebody here pointed out that rules for local and regional truckers are different from interstate truckers, and that therefore you get a much different type of driver and furthermore, one who is also operating under different and sometimes more draconian time demands. There are limits to how long an interstate driver can drive, for example, but in the case of others, it varies state to state. So some local drivers may be more tired and inattentive (not to mention hopped up on amphetimines) than national drivers.
*sigh*
> What made you think he was here illegally
His name, genius.
Gee, our Attorney General is named Alberto Gonzales...our Florida State Senator is named Martinez. There are lots of “LEGAL” American citizens with spanish names.
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