Lodi crash: Grandparents in Mexico may join boy whose family died
Mexican consulate officials are working to bring up two sets of grandparents to help care for the 9-year-old boy who lost his parents and three siblings in a car crash this week in Lodi.
Eden Miranda remained in critical condition Thursday after a multi-vehicle crash two days earlier killed his entire family, including his pregnant mother.
Carlos González Gutiérrez, the Mexican consul general in Sacramento, told the Sacramento Bee that the situation was “particularly sad.”
“This is a typical immigrant family that comes here to work in the field in order to provide a better future for their kids. It is devastating to know that nearly a whole family perished in this accident,” Gutiérrez said.
According to an official with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the grandparents could be allowed to come to the U.S. under an emergency provision called “humanitarian parole.”
“It’s an extraordinary measure to bring in an otherwise inadmissible person to the United States for a temporary period of time due to a very compelling emergency,” an agency official told the Bee.
The Mexican consulate is also arranging for the bodies of the deceased family members to be sent to Guerrero, Mexico, for burial.
The six-vehicle collision on Tuesday occurred at the intersection of Ham Lane and Vine Street in Lodi.
Some have expressed anger about reports that the driver of the SUV involved had been talking on a cellphone at the time of the crash, the Lodi News-Sentinel reported. Witnesses also said the SUV was going nearly 90 mph just before the crash.
Killed in the collision were: Stephanie Miranda, 4; Jose Miranda, 5; Irving Miranda, 11; Luis Miranda, 30; and Vivian Rodriguez, 31, who was pregnant.
“The guy that provoked the accident didn’t die. Why them and not the guy that made the accident? it’s just not fair for them,” a relative of the victims, Yuli Campo, told Fox 40.
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