Q COSTA RICA NEWS – Traffic congestion on the autopista General Cañas in the Alajuela – San Jose direction, worsened during morning peak hours due to two fatal crashes leaving three people dead.
One of the crashes occurred a few hundred metres ahead of the area known as Castella, west of the ‘platina’ bridge, where a partial closure since Saturday has become a total nightmare for drivers.
The collision involved five vehicles: two buses, two official vehicles of the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social (CCSS) and a mini bus.
Photos show the gruesome result as one the vehicles, a pickup truck, as accordioned between a bus and an ambulance: the box of the pick up under the bus that at the time was at full capacity with 80 passengers.
The two CCSS officials, whose names have not been yet released, died at the scene of the crash. In addition, some 17 people were injured, according to emergency responders, two people required taking to hospital.
Authorities say the removal of the bodies was complicated given that the pick-up the two were riding in became entangled between one of the buses and a CCSS ambulance.
The process in traffic accidents with fatalities are involved is that a criminal court judge and officials of the Organismo de Investigacion Judicial (OIJ) be on the scene before the bodies can be removed, a process than can take up to a couple of hours or more.
The other accidents, within minutes of the first, occurred in the area of the Firestone/Bridgestone plan, when a man made the ‘mad dash’ across the autopista, killed at the scene, struck by a vehicle.
Both accidents occurred shortly after 6:00am.