FRESNO – A sixth body was pulled from a rural San Joaquin Valley irrigation canal yesterday after a collision between a septic truck and a sport utility vehicle carrying farmworkers from a peach orchard. A seventh victim remained missing and is presumed dead.
The latest victim was found in the swift, brackish waters of the canal about 10 miles from the accident site in Westley, about 15 miles southwest of Modesto, authorities said. She was identified as Adrianna Garcia, 17, of Lodi.
The other dead were identified as Luis Perez, 45; Eulalia Garcia, 34; Isaac Tapia, 16; Adan Martinez, 22; and Elizar Cruz, 19. Perez, who was driving the septic truck, was from Merced, and the others lived in Lodi.
The California Highway Patrol said the SUV ran a stop sign and was broadsided by the truck. Witnesses told authorities they didn't see anyone escape from the submerged vehicles.
Family members and witnesses said the SUV was taking six laborers from the orchard back home to Lodi, CHP Officer Mayolo Banuelos said. Initial reports suggested that two people had been in the truck, but investigators now believe there was only one, the driver. His body has been recovered.
The canal runs about 17 feet deep and 100 feet wide where the crash occurred, said Pete Lucero, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The bureau operates the 117-mile canal, which funnels water from a pumping plant to the western San Joaquin Valley.
Perez had been cleaning out portable toilets at a nearby orchard before the collision, said Paige Dawson, a spokeswoman for United Site Services Inc., which owns the septic truck.
Up to 5 gallons of sewage spilled from the truck into the canal but didn't pose a problem for water quality, said Frances Mizuno, assistant executive director of the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority.
Araceli Martinez, who lost two relatives in the crash, said both had recently traveled to California from the Mexican state of Guerrero to support their families.
“They were such hard workers until yesterday, when this accident took their lives,” she said. “They just came to help their families.”
