BELIZE CITY, Thurs. Mar. 31, 2022– Delso Antonio Alveno, 19, a resident of Orange Walk Town, lost his life on Tuesday night when the car he was driving, a Saturn Vue, collided with a dump truck heading in the opposite direction between Miles 37 and 38 on the Philip Goldson Highway near the community of River Ridge. On the heels of the collision between those two vehicles, a Ford F-150 truck that was traveling behind the dump truck slammed into the rear end of that truck—resulting in a 3-vehicle collision. The incident reportedly occurred at about 7:30 on Tuesday night as Alveno was heading to Belize City from Orange Walk.
Initial police reports indicate that the dump truck, which was being driven by Steven Laing, 27, an Orange Walk Town resident, was heading in the direction of Orange Walk Town, when, somewhere between Miles 37 and 38, the Saturn Vue driven by Alveno allegedly crashed into the front of the truck, after which the Ford F-150, which was being driven by Jose Hernandez, 40, a resident of San Estevan village, hit the rear end of the truck.
When police arrived at the scene, Alveno was trapped inside his vehicle, while the dump truck was parked on the right side of the highway with extensive damage to its front portion and the Ford F-150 behind it.
Alveno was retrieved from his vehicle and transported to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital for medical attention but succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead on arrival. Laing and Hernandez, on the other hand, received only minor injuries.
Police have since detained Laing pending an investigation. According to a friend of an eyewitness of the accident who was interviewed by 7News, however, Laing might not have been at fault.
“… The truck was going back to Orange Walk and the car was going to Belize City and the truck was driving on his right-hand side, and there was coming to another vehicle on the back an F-150 belonging to a guy from Orange Walk, San Estevan, and the guy from Orange Walk, San Estevan, saw when the car swerved directly in front of the car and hit the truck, and upon hitting the truck, the truck lost control and swerved a little out from the roadside, actually completely out from the roadside, and well, that’s what occurred, nuh,” he said.
In regard to what led the F-150 truck to hit the rear end of the dump truck, he said, “…the guy that hit the back, that was because the truck spilt all the oil, which the firemen had to wash the same night, because it was a pool of oil, and the truck, the pickup coming at the back couldn’t control it—that’s what the driver said, and then he never hit the back of the truck; he hit the right corner of the truck. That’s what happened, and well, the guy said that the truck saved his life, because if it was him and the other car, maybe he would be a dead man right now. So the truck was a shield for him.”