Sounds of Fatal Crash Still Haunt Survivors : Border: Three immigrants who were in vehicle during the Temecula chase trace their journey from Mexico.

The sounds of the accident that killed six people in Temecula still keep Jose Manuel Contreras Pineda awake at night, echoing in his head.

As he lay on the floor of a stolen Chevrolet Suburban being pursued by the Border Patrol, piled among other illegal immigrants like human cargo, Contreras and four friends heard the siren of a Border Patrol car wail close behind as the chase began on Interstate 15 last week.

They heard the roaring engine as the Suburban sped through the streets of Temecula. They heard screams from the front seat. Then came the hideous shearing impact of metal on metal as the Suburban hit another car at the intersection by a high school, literally tearing the other car in half, before overturning.

“It was something ugly,” said Contreras, 22, who is being held as a witness in the case, groping for words during an interview Tuesday at the Metropolitan Correctional Center here. “It . . . it was really loud. . . . I managed to get out by myself. I looked and everybody was covered with blood.”

For the first time, on Tuesday, three of the 12 illegal immigrants who were in the fleeing vehicle described the Border Patrol chase and accident in Temecula on June 2 that left six people dead. All three are still dazed at having been thrust into the center of a major news event that has raised questions about Border Patrol chase policies and freeway immigration checkpoints like the one at Temecula, where last week’s pursuit began.

Four high school students and a parent died at the scene, and one of the immigrants in the Suburban died of his injuries over the weekend. A 16-year-old Mexican youth who was allegedly driving the Suburban has been charged with murder, while federal authorities charged a 23-year-old passenger with alien smuggling.

As they recover from minor injuries, the three men in the San Diego federal prison said they are trying to recover from the emotional toll of the past week: the hospital, interrogations, nightmares, sadness.

“Imagine how I feel,” said Contreras, who suffered a broken collarbone. “Innocent people died.”

Contreras and Jesus Salazar Gutierrez, 29, are peasants from neighboring villages in the state of Guerrero who say they and three other friends had crossed the border for the first time, hoping to find agricultural work in Visalia.

The third man interviewed Tuesday is a streetwise ex-convict with a record for alien smuggling, Alfredo Flores Talonia. He freely admits to being a smuggler in the past. But he denies a reported claim by the accused driver that he was involved in smuggling the others into the country and helped cause the accident by forcing the driver to speed.

“I was just a pollo (illegal immigrant) like everybody else,” said the chunky, tattooed Flores, 27, who has not been charged with any crime in the continuing investigation. “I paid like everyone else this time, so I wouldn’t have any problems. And it came out worse.”

Riverside County Supervising Deputy Dist. Atty. Creg Datig said Tuesday that investigators are looking into the driver’s claim that Flores was the second smuggler in the vehicle and pressed his foot down on the driver’s foot on the gas pedal--an account first made public Friday by a representative of the Mexican Consulate in San Bernardino.

Investigators are trying to resolve conflicting information about who was in the front seat next to the driver at the time of the crash, Datig said.

“Certainly, Mr. Flores is a focus,” he said. “We are carefully examining . . . allegations that he may have been a coyote ,” or smuggler.

But the prosecutor cautioned that suspects in such cases often try to blame a passenger.

“Certainly, this type of claim is not uncommon . . . in a vehicular homicide,” Datig said. “We are taking a careful look, but remember, we are not even sure the driver is being candid with us about his age.”

According to interviews with Flores and the others, the Temecula incident had its roots in a gritty Tijuana neighborhood just south of the bordo , the Tijuana River levee that is one of the prime illegal crossing points on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Contreras, Salazar and their friends arrived in Tijuana on May 30 after traveling by bus from Guerrero. They said they stayed at a rundown hotel west of the San Ysidro Port of Entry until Monday, awed by the bustle around them of migrants, hustlers, vendors and other denizens of the border.

They finally went to the bordo and were quickly approached by a smooth-talking smuggler, who named a destination and a price: Santa Ana for $250 apiece.

“We were confident, we thought he would take good care of us,” Contreras said. “He talked real fancy.”

About midnight, the man guided them across the border to a motel in San Ysidro, they said. He left them waiting with other men in a room until dawn, when another smuggler ordered them to pile onto the floor of the Suburban.

“They said get down and stay down, there’s lots of migra around here,” Salazar said.

According to INS officials, the vehicle was being watched by undercover immigration agents in an unmarked car. The agents were forced to follow the Suburban all the way north to the I-15 checkpoint because they were required to use a marked Border Patrol vehicle to make an arrest and none was available, officials say.

Flores said he was guided to the San Ysidro motel separately and met the others there. Like the others, he says he saw nothing--including the faces of the driver or the smuggler--because he was told to stay down.

The migrants said they were not aware of any problems until about an hour into the drive, when they heard the Border Patrol siren close behind them. The chase had begun, speeding off of I-15 into the suburban streets of Temecula.

“He was driving crazy,” Contreras said of the driver of the Suburban. “Really crazy. Somebody said, ‘They are chasing us!’ And we just kept going faster.”

Somebody yelled that they were going to die, Salazar said, recalling that the Suburban bounced and shuddered as if it were jumping curbs. Someone else shouted a warning to the driver.

“I thought maybe we had gone through a stop sign,” Contreras said, “because somebody said, ‘Hey, you scared me!’ ”

The impact came moments later, tossing Contreras and the others in every direction. Contreras and Pineda managed to clamber out of the overturned vehicle, stunned, trying to understand how they had survived.

“I felt so bad for those who died,” Salazar said. “And we are still scared because we could have died. I still can’t sleep. I keep hearing the sounds.”

Flores, meanwhile, said he wanted to make clear that he was just another passenger, not a smuggler, as has been claimed.

“I was just lying on the floor praying that I would not die,” Flores said.

Flores was frank about his record, which includes arrests and jail time served for smuggling-related offenses and fighting. However, he said that he abandoned the life of a smuggler and had been working as a butcher in his native Cuatitlan in the state of Mexico.

When he was involved in the cross-border trade in illegal immigrants, he said, he would not lead the Border Patrol on chases if discovered because he knew the risks.

“Every time I was arrested, I never refused to stop,” he said. “There are some of the migra who know me; they know that.”

He said he was going to Los Angeles to look for any kind of work he could find.

The Mexican Consulate in San Bernardino confirmed Tuesday that the passenger who died over the weekend in Riverside is named Eniceforo Vargas Gomez. Vargas comes from a peasant family in Zalcualpan, a rural area in the state of Mexico, officials said.

Vargas’ age has not yet been determined, said Consul Columba Calvo, but police previously estimated it as 21. Vargas was making his first attempt to enter the United States last week, Calvo said. His family has been notified, and his body will be shipped back to Mexico for burial.

Since the fatal crash, politicians have been questioning the value and safety of the Temecula Border Patrol checkpoint and a busier I-5 checkpoint near San Clemente, and have urged the Border Patrol to revise its chase policies, which have been under review for months.

U.S. Sen. John Seymour (R-Calif.), who planned to meet Tuesday with INS Commissioner Gene McNary, stopped short of supporting a ban on high-speed street pursuits of alleged illegal immigrants into residential areas because “that would create safe areas for them.”

Instead, Seymour called for the use of surplus military helicopters to help in patrols and pursuits aimed at catching illegal immigrants.