QCOSTARICA – The three American tourists who died Monday afternoon in a traffic accident in, Puntarenas, had been in Costa Rica only five days.
As confirmed by the Immigration press office, the man Roland Terrell, 58, Teri Terrell, 56, and Rachel Abadie, 50, entered Costa Rican, by air, on Wednesday, January 19, 2022.
All three were frequent visitors to Costa Rica. Immigration records show that Roland and Terri were in the country in February 2013 and Roland traveled alone in April 2019. Rachel, for her part, had visited Costa Rica in March 2014 and in April and November 2018.
Roland and Terri were married with two children, lived in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and owned a business called Terrell and Associates, LLC.
The Organismo de Investigacion Judicial (OIJ) confirmed that they were in the country for tourism.
The preliminary report by the OIJ indicates that the events occurred around 2 pm Monday, January 24, when the now deceased were traveling as companions in a vehicle in the Quepos-Dominical direction, on the Ruta 34, popularly known as the Costanera Sur (South Coastal).
Read more: Three American tourists died in traffic accident
For reasons that are being investigated, it seems that the driver of the vehicle that the victims were traveling in would have made a “U-turn” and at that moment they were collided by an oncoming vehicle. A dashcam video on the oncoming vehicle, a Dodge Ram pick up, recorded the moment of the collision.
“The now deceased were traveling as companions in a vehicle in the Quepos-Dominical direction and, for reasons that are being investigated, it seems that the driver would have made a U-turn and at that moment they were collided by another vehicle (a Dodge Ram pick-up). Both the female and the male died at the site and the bodies were transferred to the Judicial Morgue for the respective autopsy to be performed. Two other people who were traveling in the vehicle were taken to the local medical center,” explained the Judicial Police through its press office.
The passengers of the pick-up involved in the collision were not injured.
The OIJ continues to investigate.
Adriano Castro Alvarado, who was on his way from Pérez Zeledón to Quepos with his family when the crash occurred, told La Nación that the car in which the victims were traveling made a U-turn and at that moment was hit by the pick- up. “The vehicle was pushed several meters and was on the other side of the street, overturned, several bodies could be seen partially out of the car,” he said.
Castro explained that he did not stop at the scene since when traveling with his relatives he preferred to continue the road, but he believes that the lack of knowledge that foreigners have of the Costa Rican roads and traffic could have influenced the tragedy.
This is the second mortal traffic accident in the month involving tourists. On January 7, two American tourists and a Swiss died in a collision in Miramar de Montes de Oro, Puntarenas. A Costa Rican, the driver of the tourism van was also killed in the crash, when their minibus collided with a trailer, went off the road, and, later, the heavy truck (which was carrying a load of sugar) fell on the bus. A fifth passenger, an American tourist, survived.
