2 Families Struggle to Cope After Vacation Crash Kills 7, Injures 15

The family reunion was a hard-won tribute to years of struggle and sacrifice. Maria Teresa Zapata, 78, came all the way from Guatemala to visit her immigrant relatives in Los Angeles and hold her 1-year-old American great-grandson, Anthony Lucero, for the first time, relatives said.

The family’s joy was sweet but fleeting. On Saturday, Zapata and Anthony--the oldest and youngest members of their transnational extended family--died on an Arizona highway on the way back from the Grand Canyon when their van crashed head-on into a car and burst into flames.

The crash killed five members of the multi-generational family riding in the van and two of the car’s passengers, the father and son of a Bangladeshi family touring the Grand Canyon after a trip to Van Nuys. Fifteen people were injured, seven of whom remained hospitalized Monday.

The Arizona Department of Public Safety said the car had attempted to pass another vehicle and collided with the van. The van overturned and caught fire.

“I’m stunned and crushed,” said Jose Lucero, a Los Angeles factory worker who was Anthony’s uncle, his voice breaking with emotion. “I lost my little nephew. This is the kind of thing that you never imagine happening, that nothing can prepare you to accept.”

Zapata would have flown back to Guatemala today, Lucero said. She and Anthony died along with her daughter, Consuelo, 52, and in-laws Dora Lima Zapata, 39, and Milvia Lima, 34. Thirteen members of the family were injured, including Milvia Lima’s daughter, Ulisa, 5, who Lucero said was so badly burned that her arms may need to be amputated. She is at the Maricopa County Burn Center.

Killed in the car were businessman Mohammad Islam, 42, and his 14-year-old son, Rafiqul Islam, authorities said. His daughter, Rumana Islam, 19, was treated at a hospital and released Sunday. His wife, Feroza Bilkis, 36, was hospitalized in fair condition at Flagstaff Medical Center after undergoing an operation to close a rupture in her stomach, family members said.

“This is a tragedy in the Bangladesh community,” said a friend of Islam, Apu Rashid.

Mohammad Islam was a Bangladesh-based import-export book and periodical seller on his annual trip to Van Nuys, according to a friend of the family.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles had a listing for a Mohammad Islam that matched the victim’s birth date; it showed no record of license violations or collisions.

His brother-in-law, Van Nuys resident Mohammad Kader, said Islam was taking his wife to see the Grand Canyon for the first time.

“I am getting calls from people in New York, Atlanta, all over the country, from people who had done business with my brother-in-law,” Kader said. “They knew him and loved him.”

But Islam was not well known in the Bangladeshi American pocket community in Van Nuys where he came to visit relatives.

“He was only here visiting for a short time,” Rashid said. We were not blood kin, but we were close.” Rashid said his family had gone to offer support to Islam’s wife and daughter in Arizona.

“He usually lives in Bangladesh,” Rashid said, adding: “He was a very good businessman.”

Maminul Haque, a Bangladeshi community leader with a travel business in Los Angeles, said he is making memorial service plans with Islam’s brother-in-law in North Hollywood.

“We are waiting for further word from the family,” Haque said. “We are Muslim, so there will have to be a service here and there will be another service in Bangladesh when they return.”

Members of the Bangladeshi community contacted that nation’s consul general in Los Angeles after the crash. The consulate said it would offer assistance if the family wanted to send the victims’ bodies to Dhaka.

Lucero said the accident wrought tragedy on his family at a moment when they were happily savoring the highlight of their vacation--a trip to the Grand Canyon.

Lucero immigrated to Los Angeles in 1988 and his brother soon followed. During Zapata’s two-week vacation in Los Angeles, they delighted in showing off their new life in America to six out-of-town relatives from Jalapa, an old-fashioned provincial town of 26,000 in eastern Guatemala.

The family was in a festive mood as they piled 18 people--including five youngsters--into a Ford bus and headed off to Arizona, Lucero said.

“We invited the abuelita to see the Grand Canyon,” said Lucero, who speaks no English, using the affectionate Spanish diminutive for grandmother.

Lucero didn’t go. He said he was out shopping Saturday when he got a call on his cellular phone from his hospitalized brother, Freddy Lucero, 31--the father of Anthony. Freddy’s wife, Andina, suffered back injuries, Lucero said, and was hospitalized in fair condition.

Lucero said the couple’s grief over the loss of their son has rendered them inconsolable. Seeing the accident story again and again on television worsens their misery, he said.

“It’s very painful,” he said.

At the Flagstaff Medical Center, survivors from both families stood by the bedsides of their relatives.

“They don’t want to speak to anybody,” said Janet Dean, the hospital’s public affairs director. “They’re just taking care of each other.”

As the Luceros struggle with their grief and shock and try to offer reassurance and support to their injured relatives, they now are trying to steel their hearts for the next hurdle: the cost of sending the bodies of Zapata and the others back to Guatemala for burial.

“I don’t know how we’re going to manage,” Lucero said. “Maybe we can take up a collection. Each dollar, for us, is a grain of sand. Each one, for us, means a lot.”