Photo: Joana Samoza, deceased
by Charles Gladden
ST. MATTHEWS VILLAGE, Cayo District, Mon. Feb. 20, 2023
Two Belize Recycling Company employees who were riding on a motorcycle along the George Price Highway were killed on Monday night, February 20, when an ambulance rear-ended the bike on which they were traveling on the Beaver Dam Bridge between Miles 38 and 39 on the George Price Highway near St. Matthews Village in Cayo. The two victims of the accident—Aurelio Ayala, 42, a Salvadoran national of Harmonyville, and Joana Samoza, 21, of Cotton Tree Village—had finished working for the day, and Ayala was giving Samoza a ride home when the accident occurred.
Reports have indicated that Ayala and Samoza, having left their place of employment at the Belize Recycling Company at Mile 8 on the highway, were crossing the bridge on a motorcycle on their way to their homes after 8:00 p.m., when the ambulance, which was being driven by Josh Barrillas, 33, who later claimed that he did not see them in the dimly lit area, hit the back of the motorbike.
When the motorbike was hit, Ayala was thrown onto the pavement of the road, and died on impact, while Samoza was flung over the bridge into the gully below and also died as a result. The ambulance, which had been traveling in the same direction in which Ayala and Samoza were heading (towards Belmopan), sustained damage to its right portion and its windshield.
Ayala and Samoza were taken to the Western Regional Hospital and were both pronounced dead on arrival. Meanwhile, Barrillas and his passenger were taken to the hospital for medical attention.
Barrillas also provided a urine sample to the police and, as is the norm until investigations are completed, was served with a notice of intended prosecution (NIP).
ASP Fitzroy Yearwood, Communications Director of the Belize Police Department, told local reporters the following morning that the ambulance driver, Barrillas, reported that he had not seen the two persons on the motorcycle, since there are no lights on the Beaver Dam Bridge.
“He didn’t notice the motorbike in front of him and this motorbike was rear-ended, causing injuries to both the driver and the passenger of that motorcycle … there is no light on the Beaver Dam Bridge. I know they have lights on the side of the highway on both approaches, but on the bridge itself there are no lights,” Yearwood said.
According to Yearwood, the ambulance is from southern Belize and was making its way to the Western Regional Hospital from Belize City with a patient.
The mother of Joana Samoza, Cindy Samoza, told AMANDALA that she didn’t expect her daughter to lose her life in a traffic accident.
“We never expected her to lose her life like coming from work, because she likes to go out and hang out, and maybe I’d expect it there, but not when she was coming from work. Sometimes she would go out and have fun, and so maybe one of these days something would happen to her, but no, it happened when she was coming from work … and that hurts me more. She wasn’t on the street like how she usually do,” she said.
Freddy Orellana, the general manager of Belize Recycling Company, told Amandala that he had known Ayala since they were children in El Salvador, and when he came to Belize to work at the Belize Recycling Company, he brought along Ayala.
When speaking with Amandala, Orellana spoke highly of Ayala — noting that he was an excellent worker and a good family man.
Orellana further stated that Samoza, who had started working at the company just a month ago, would commute daily by catching the bus; however, on that day she got a ride with Ayala instead.
“It affected us a lot. On Tuesday all of us were crying and mourning their death; it’s very hard,” Orellana said.
“… I always go in the evenings to the business and joke around with them, and we were laughing, because we really loved him as a brother; and Joana we were just getting to know, but she was a nice and hardworking girl,” Orellana added.
The post-mortem examinations that were done on the bodies of Samoza and Ayala determined that their deaths were caused by multiple blunt force traumatic injures due to a road traffic accident.
Ayala leaves behind his wife and a one-year-old son.