Families Still Feel Impact of Freeway Crash

What Richard Badders remembers most about Saturday’s accident was the sound of wheels screeching, followed by a loud thump and then feeling his van spin around several times.

“The van spun around 360 degrees, and then we were all laying on our backs,” he said Monday from the pediatrics ward at Western Medical Center in Santa Ana, where his son, Michael, is being treated for a broken leg. “And then I felt the van being hit two more times. I thought it was going to tip over on its side.”

According to Badders, whose whole family was injured, when it was all over and he had carried Michael to the side of the road, the 11-year-old boy asked: “Why, Dad? Why did God let this happen to me?”

On Monday, Roberto Araiza and his wife, Julieta, the sister of two of the victims killed in the 11-vehicle crash, also tried to make sense of it all.

“We still don’t believe it,” said Roberto Araiza. “They were such good people.”

According to a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol, a tractor pulling a semitrailer plowed into slow-moving traffic on the Santa Ana Freeway on Saturday afternoon, careening into as many as 10 vehicles.

The CHP said the tractor, driven by Jackie Dillard, 55, of Fresno, was traveling at about 50 m.p.h. on the southbound Interstate 5 in Santa Ana and did not slow down as it approached traffic that had slowed to 10 to 15 m.p.h.

Dillard was arrested on suspicion of felony drunk driving and manslaughter and is scheduled to be arraigned in Santa Ana Municipal Court today, said Sheriff’s Lt. Richard J. Olson. Dillard is being held in Orange County Jail, Olson said.

CHP Officer Paul Caldwell said Dillard was delivering a load of apples from Fresno to La Habra at the time of the accident. According to the Department of Motor Vehicles, Dillard has only one traffic violation, a 1987 speeding ticket.

According to a CHP spokeswoman, the Santa Ana office received a report of a reckless truck driver on Interstate 5 just before the accident. The CHP said no other details about the call were available.

The crash, which one fire official called “a scene of absolute carnage,” began in the southbound lanes and spilled over into the northbound lanes, stopping traffic for five hours as rescue teams from local fire departments and a hospital helicopter unit removed the dead and injured and cleared the wreckage, said CHP officials.

According to Olson, numerous people were injured, most of them suffering only bruises and scrapes. Except for members of the Badders family, most were treated at local hospitals and released Saturday, he said.

Those killed in the crash had all been in the same car. They were identified as Bartolo Lozano, 66, the driver; his brother, Antonio Lozano, 69, and Antonio’s wife, Maria Lozano, 59. The brothers died at the scene. Maria Lozano died at Western Medical Center in Santa Ana.

Also injured was Jose Lozano, 72, who was treated at UCI Medical Center and released, said a spokeswoman for the hospital. According to Roberto Araiza, Jose Lozano is no relation to the deceased.

From their home in Anaheim, Roberto and Julieta Araiza remembered their relatives.

“If I think about them I can still hear their voices,” Roberto Araiza said.

Araiza, 61, a truck driver, explained that Antonio and Maria Lozano were visiting that week and were heading back to their home in Tijuana when the accident occurred.

The car carrying the Lozanos was left a heap of twisted metal and rubber.

“We saw the car and I cried,” Araiza said. “It was just a piece of junk, and there was blood all over.”

Meanwhile, at the pediatrics ward, Badders complained of back pains and bruises on his leg. He said his son, Robert, 13, and daughter, Kimberly, 9, also have bruises on their legs and have back pains, as well as cuts on their faces. His wife, Cheryl, 40, who is five months’ pregnant, suffered the same injuries as her husband.

Richard Badders said doctors checked the condition of the unborn baby, which was found to be in good condition. “We had the doctors check the heartbeat, and it sounded nice and strong,” he said.

Despite the pain his family has gone through, Badders still feels fortunate.

“I feel damn lucky to be alive,” he said. “I was hit solid. If I had been in a smaller car, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

He said that when the semitrailer hit the other cars, “everybody must have gone in 20 different directions, because when I got out, there was no one around.”

Badders said his wife told him that after the accident, Dillard, the driver of the truck, came over to her “and put his arm around her and said he was sorry. He was crying.”

But Badders still can’t bring himself to forgive him.

Araiza, who said he will send the bodies of Antonio and Maria Lozano back to Mexico, was more forgiving.

“We feel sorry for the guy,” Araiza said. “But they (Antonio, Bartolo and Maria) have families too.”