Girl Who Survived Crash Ordeal Says Farewell to Her Mother

Ruby Bustamante, the little girl from Indio who survived a car accident and 10 days alone in a deep ravine while her mother Norma lay dead next to her, said a final goodbye to her mom Friday.

In a family member’s arms and surrounded by more than 100 friends, family and well-wishers, the 5-year-old in a pink-and-green summer dress bent down and kissed her mother’s casket.

“We’ve told her her mom’s in heaven,” said Norma’s aunt and godmother, Judy Cortina. “They’re so young, they still don’t really understand it all.”

Bustamante, 26, an Indio retail worker and mother of six, ages 9 to five months, is believed to have died shortly after her car skidded off Highway 60 in a rural area known as the Badlands on April 4. It plunged 150 feet down a cliff and slammed into a tree.

On Friday, her children and friends said goodbye in an elaborate ceremony that included doves and hundreds of red and white flowers.

In the Centro Libre Cristiano Church in Coachella, pallbearers with shaved heads and white shirts hid tears behind sunglasses.

One by one, as the rap song “I’ll Be Missing You” played, mourners approached the casket and paid their last respects.

At the cemetery, mourners released balloons as they shouted, “We love you, Norma.”

Ruby, who survived on Gatorade and Ramen noodles while her family frantically searched for her and her mother, was rescued nine days after the crash when highway construction workers found them.

Her family has been critical of the California Highway Patrol, emergency personnel and police for failing to search the area after another driver called 911 to report the accident.

In a four-page statement released Thursday, Riverside County fire officials said fire crews dispatched to the scene were not required to search for the Bustamantes on foot after they saw no sign of an accident, because of highway dangers in the area.

“Fire Department personnel do not routinely stop and search large areas of Highway 60 by foot unless there is substantial evidence of the accident location,” the statement said.

“Due to the extraordinary events surrounding this occurrence ... the Fire Department was unable to locate the scene of the accident or the victims.”

The report said the department “will be reviewing practices and procedures in an effort to prevent this type of atypical event in the future.”

In his sermon to the mourners, Pastor Sal Robledo alluded to the family’s complaints.

“The sheriffs or whoever didn’t respond, but God responded,” Robledo said. “It doesn’t matter if they didn’t do anything about it

A limp and a signed cast on her fractured right knee were the only visible signs of Ruby’s ordeal.

Family members Friday said the girl had thought her mother was sleeping and tried to pry her eyes open.

Angie Evaro, a cousin of Ruby’s grandmother, said the girl said she twice tried to walk “up the hill, but her leg was hurting too much.”

“So she made a little campground, sat on a blanket and said she’s not going to leave her mom now,” Evaro said.

“I believe Norma was calling out to God to protect her baby,” Cortina said. “God had his hands on them.”

Ruby and her siblings will live with their grandmother, she said.

“They’re all a part of us too,” Cortina said. “Our love for them will always be there even if their mother isn’t.”

A fund in Norma and Ruby Bustamante’s names has been set up at the Riverside County Credit Union, P.O. Box 908, Riverside, CA 92502, or 909-571-5365.