(Links featured below are the source information of these articles)
(1) http://news.yahoo.com/limo-went-flames-had-extra-193046805.html
A stretch limousine that burst into flames on a San Francisco Bay bridge, killing five women inside, was carrying one too many people, authorities say.
The California Public Utilities Commission had authorized the vehicle to carry eight or fewer passengers. However, on the night of the blaze, the vehicle was carrying nine people, according to Captain Mike Maskarich of the California Highway Patrol. He did not comment on whether or not the excessive amount of passengers was the cause of the deadly fire.(appears to be implied)
The cause of the fire remains under investigation. The vehicle itself has yet to be inspected, said Maskarich.
The limousine was carrying nine women on the night of the fire, including one newlywed bride who perished in the blaze. The fire happened Saturday on the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge. The driver and four female passengers were able to escape the blaze.
Orville Brown, the chauffeur of the limo, said he misunderstood at first what one of the passengers in the back was saying when she knocked on the partition between the passenger and driver areas complaining about the smell of smoke.
With the music turned up, he initially thought the woman was asking if she could smoke. A few seconds later, the woman knocked again yelling, "Smoke! Smoke!" and "Pull over," Brown told the San Francisco Chronicle.
He helped four of the women escape through the partition. One of the women rescued ran around to the back door to help the others escape, but by then it was engulfed in flames.
"When she opened that back door, I knew it wasn't a good scene," said Brown. "I figured with all that fire they were gone, man. There were just so many flames. Within maybe 90 seconds, the car was fully engulfed."
The remaining women were found dead huddled near the partition, in an apparent attempt to escape the flames. The identities have not yet been released.
"My guess would be they were trying to get away from the fire and use that window as an escape route," said San Mateo County Coroner Robert foucrault.
Firefighters arrived within minutes and extinguished the blaze. Investigators have done preliminary interviews with the drivers and surviving passengers, said Maskarich, but that they needed to be re-interviewed.
Maskarich also stated that the investigation is expected to take weeks.
As of Monday, May 6, two survivors were hospitalized in critical condition.
Investigators were trying to determine if any crime occurred. Foucrault said they doubted that the blaze involved any criminal activity.
Relatives told the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Jose Mercury that one of the dead was Neriza Fojas, a 31 year-old registered nurse from Fresno who recently wed and was planning on travelling to her native Philippines to hold another ceremony before family. Her friends in the limousine were fellow nurses.
Brown, 46, of San Jose, said he was taking the women to the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Foster City. Rosalyn Bersamin, Fojas' sister, told the Chronicle that after a night on the town, Fojas and her friends were heading to the hotel to celebrate with her new husband.
"She was a hard worker, a loving sister," said Bersamin through sobs.
Aerial video shot after the fire shows about one third of the back half of the limousine had been scorched. The tail lights and bumper were gone, and the car appears to be resting on its rims, but the remaining portion of the vehicles did not appear to be damaged.
A photo taken by a witness and aired on KTVU-TV showed flames shooting from the back of the limo.
Brown said he wishes he could have done more.
"It's something you never imagine would happen," he told the Chronicle. "It's a limousine ride. It's supposed to be a joyous thing."
Brown said he is an experienced driver that has operated airport shuttles and trucks.(familiar with working around loud noises; would be able to make out the victim's pleas for help)
He started driving for the Limo Stop, Inc. about two months earlier and had put in about six shifts behind the wheel of the towncar that caught fire, he said.(implication here is that a wiring problem could have existed before he started driving the vehicle)
Medical examiners will identify the victims using dental records. Foucrault said the autopsies will include toxicology tests(planting the suggestion that the women were drunk and that a normally "benign" situation got out of hand, and that their "inebration" was the cause of the women not being able to escape the fire) as well as examinations into whether any accelerants such as alcohol or gasoline were found on the bodies.(They were going to a wedding party. They likely had alcoholic beverages in the limousine with them. Makes for an easy mental displacement)
The four women who escaped the fire are were being treated at nearby hospitals. They are identified as: Mary G. Guardiano, 42, of Alameda; Jasmine Desguia, 34, of San Jose; Nelia Arrellano, 36, of Oakland; and amalia Loyola, 48, of San Leandro.
Misses Desguia and Loyola were listed in critical condition Monday, said a spokeswoman for Valley Medical Center. Miss Arrellano was taken to another hospital. Her condition is not yet known. (No mention of Mary Guardiano and her condition. Appears to have been left out on purpose.)
A spokeswoman for Community Medical Center in Fresno said one or more of its employees was in the limo.(Appears to indicate that the spokeswoman for Community Medical Center is in on the murder.)
Limo Stop offers service through limousines, vans and SUVs. Records from the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates limousine companies, show that the company is properly licensed and insured.
Limo Stop issued a statement pledging to do "everything possible" to find the cause of the fire and "bring forth answers and provide closure" (This answer appears "put on;" sounds too much like a politician saying they are going to do everything 'reasonably' possible, which is code for "We're going to try to get out of doing anything at all possible costs") to victims and their families.
(2) http://www.kmph.com/story/22167381/bride-to-be-from-fresno-killed-in-limousine-fire
A bride-to-be killed in limousine fire on San Mateo Bridge. Neriza Fojas, 31, died while on her way to a bachelorette party in Foster City, CA.
The fire started around 10 PM on the westbound lane of the bridge, southeast of San Francisco.
Nine women in total were in the limousine, but only four survived. Police are hoping the survivors can shed some light on what started the fire.
Four women escaped the blaze, with injury, while the driver of the limousine escaped unhurt.
(3) http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-deadly-limo-fire-coroner-share-details-of-horrific-fire-that-left-5-dead-and-4-injured-2-critically-20130505,0,4993794.story(coroner's point of view)
Orville Brown, driver of the limousine, picked up the women in Oakland on Saturday evening, according to Coroner Robert Foucrault. He was hired to drop them off at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Foster City, located about 40 miles away, at a bachelorette party.
The women were all riding in the passenger section of the limousine when they noticed smoke coming from the back of the (attention is called here) 1999 Lincoln Town Car, according to Foucrault. Mr. Brown pulled over to the side on the San Mateo-Hayward bridge.
When Brown got out to inspect the limo he noticed the rear was engulfed in flames, said Foucrault. Three passengers managed to escape through the rear passenger door, while another squeezed through the partition separating the driver from the passengers, he (Foucrault) said. The other five, including the bride-to-be, were found near the partition, said Foucrault.
"It was almost impossible for them to get out as the fire was moving so fast," Foucrault said.
Two surviving passengers, Jasmine Desguia, 34, of San Jose, and Amalia Loyola, 48, of San Leandro were taken to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, where they are being treated for burns and smoke inhalation. Their condition is listed as critical.
The other two surviving passengers - Nelia Arellano, 36, of Oakland and Mary Guardiano, 42, of Alameda -- were taken to Stanford Medical Center. They were treated for moderate burns and smoke inhalation, authorities said. Their conditions are unknown.
Brown, 46, of San Jose, was not injured in the accident. Foucrault said he was "pretty distraught."
The names of the dead have not been released pending proper identification. (Why "proper" identification of the bodies? Does Mr. Foucrault routinely perform "improper" cadaver identifications?)
Foster City Fire Department's arson division is investigating the fire. They said it could take days to determine what caused the blaze.
http://news.yahoo.com/limo-driver-survivor-views-differ-fatal-fire-073441132.html(inside accounts of limo fire from driver and passengers)
(writing from Redwood City, California) As smoke thickened and the fire grew, Nelia Arellano desperately tried to squeeze through a 3'x1 1/2' partition.
Arellano got stuck for a moment, then managed to make her way into the front seat of the limousine. Three friends, Mary Guardiano, Jasmine Desguia, and Amalia Loyola, managed to get through the partition also. The remaining women, including the newlywed bride, or bride-to-be depending on which story you read, perished in the blaze. Their bodies were later found pressed against the partition.
In an interview with KGO-TV on Monday, Arellano said she believed the driver, Orville Brown, could have done more to help during the fire, which took place Saturday night on one of the busiest bridges in San Francisco Bay.
"When he stop the car, he just get out, he just get out from the car," she said.
Arellano and the other women were celebrating the wedding of their friend, Neriza Fojas, and were headed across the San Mateo-Hayward bridge going to a hotel in Foster City.
Brown, a San Jose man who worked for the limo company the past two months, has said in interviews that one of the passengers tapped on the partition behind him, saying something about smoke as music blared from the back. No smoking was allowed, he told them. (Sounds too cozy toward Brown, like the reporter of the story knew Mr. Brown, knew that criminal activity had taken place, and was attempting to cover up for him.)(Furthermore, if Mr. Brown had opened the (window) partition to speak with the women, then it is likely he would have smelled the smoke and stopped the car sooner. The fact that there is no mention of this happening suggests that Mr. Brown did not open the partition but rather left it closed.)
The taps then turned to urgent knocking, and someone screamed, "Pull over!"
Brown said he stopped on the bridge as soon as he could. Then he helped pull the women out through the partition, he said.
One of the women who made it through the partition went to the back and yanked open a door, but Brown said that provided oxygen to the fire and the rear of the limo became engulfed in flames. (This statement is a blatant lie. In a video featured on www.latimes.com under the heading "Limousine's back doors were locked, says fire victim's husband," it clearly shows the read of the limousine engulfed in flames before it was charred, with no one standing outside, and the limo clearly parked on the side of the road. This suggests that Mr. Brown waited for the fire to burn for some time, before exiting the limousine himself and pulling the women through the partition.)
Brown said he believed it was an electrical fire.
"It could have been smoldering for days," he told KGO on Monday, noting there was no explosive boom.(Mr. Brown appears to be trying to throw people off the trail of what really happened. If it was an electrical fire as he said, it could not have been smoldering for days because the electricity from the wires would have caused the limousine to catch fire before Saturday night. Judging by the video, it appears that the fire started in the trunk of the limousine.)
Authorities searched for answers Monday, hoping to learn what sparked the blaze, and why five of the victims couldn't escape it.
The position of the bodies at the partition suggested they were trying to get away from the fire, said San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault. (This would only have happened if they couldn't get out of the rear doors that they entered to get in the passenger area.)
Fojas, 31, a registered nurse from Fresno, was planning to travel to the Philippines to hold another ceremony with relatives. Her friends in the limousine were fellow nurses.
Mrs. Fojas was among the five killed in the fire. Her mother, Sonya, broke into tears during an interview in the Philippines with local TV network GMA News.
"How painful, how painful what happened," she said.
Harry Thomas Jr., U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines, expressed his condolences to the Fojas family.
"Mystery surrounds deadly limo fire," he said in a Twitter message. "Condolences to the Fojas family in the Philippines and the U.S. and other nurses."
Fojas and another woman that died, Michelle Estrera, were nurses at Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno. Jenni Balon, a third victim that perished in the blaze, was identified to the San Francisco Chronicle by her husband.
John Balon, 38, said their 10-year-old daughter cries for her mother at night and is still working on paintings to give her for Mother's Day. His daughter and 1-year-old son are still looking for their mother, he said.
He told his daughter that she is in heaven.
"I told her mom doesn't want us to worry a lot," he told the Chronicle. "She is happy there. She won't be happy if we worry."
The other two victims have not been identified.
The medical center's CEO, Jack Chubb, said in a statement Monday that Fojas and Estrera were outstanding nurses, loved by their patients, colleagues and staff.
"Both were good friends, stellar nurses and excellent mentors who served as preceptors to new nurses," he said.
(1) http://news.yahoo.com/limo-went-flames-had-extra-193046805.html
A stretch limousine that burst into flames on a San Francisco Bay bridge, killing five women inside, was carrying one too many people, authorities say.
The California Public Utilities Commission had authorized the vehicle to carry eight or fewer passengers. However, on the night of the blaze, the vehicle was carrying nine people, according to Captain Mike Maskarich of the California Highway Patrol. He did not comment on whether or not the excessive amount of passengers was the cause of the deadly fire.(appears to be implied)
The cause of the fire remains under investigation. The vehicle itself has yet to be inspected, said Maskarich.
The limousine was carrying nine women on the night of the fire, including one newlywed bride who perished in the blaze. The fire happened Saturday on the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge. The driver and four female passengers were able to escape the blaze.
Orville Brown, the chauffeur of the limo, said he misunderstood at first what one of the passengers in the back was saying when she knocked on the partition between the passenger and driver areas complaining about the smell of smoke.
With the music turned up, he initially thought the woman was asking if she could smoke. A few seconds later, the woman knocked again yelling, "Smoke! Smoke!" and "Pull over," Brown told the San Francisco Chronicle.
He helped four of the women escape through the partition. One of the women rescued ran around to the back door to help the others escape, but by then it was engulfed in flames.
"When she opened that back door, I knew it wasn't a good scene," said Brown. "I figured with all that fire they were gone, man. There were just so many flames. Within maybe 90 seconds, the car was fully engulfed."
The remaining women were found dead huddled near the partition, in an apparent attempt to escape the flames. The identities have not yet been released.
"My guess would be they were trying to get away from the fire and use that window as an escape route," said San Mateo County Coroner Robert foucrault.
Firefighters arrived within minutes and extinguished the blaze. Investigators have done preliminary interviews with the drivers and surviving passengers, said Maskarich, but that they needed to be re-interviewed.
Maskarich also stated that the investigation is expected to take weeks.
As of Monday, May 6, two survivors were hospitalized in critical condition.
Investigators were trying to determine if any crime occurred. Foucrault said they doubted that the blaze involved any criminal activity.
Relatives told the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Jose Mercury that one of the dead was Neriza Fojas, a 31 year-old registered nurse from Fresno who recently wed and was planning on travelling to her native Philippines to hold another ceremony before family. Her friends in the limousine were fellow nurses.
Brown, 46, of San Jose, said he was taking the women to the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Foster City. Rosalyn Bersamin, Fojas' sister, told the Chronicle that after a night on the town, Fojas and her friends were heading to the hotel to celebrate with her new husband.
"She was a hard worker, a loving sister," said Bersamin through sobs.
Aerial video shot after the fire shows about one third of the back half of the limousine had been scorched. The tail lights and bumper were gone, and the car appears to be resting on its rims, but the remaining portion of the vehicles did not appear to be damaged.
A photo taken by a witness and aired on KTVU-TV showed flames shooting from the back of the limo.
Brown said he wishes he could have done more.
"It's something you never imagine would happen," he told the Chronicle. "It's a limousine ride. It's supposed to be a joyous thing."
Brown said he is an experienced driver that has operated airport shuttles and trucks.(familiar with working around loud noises; would be able to make out the victim's pleas for help)
He started driving for the Limo Stop, Inc. about two months earlier and had put in about six shifts behind the wheel of the towncar that caught fire, he said.(implication here is that a wiring problem could have existed before he started driving the vehicle)
Medical examiners will identify the victims using dental records. Foucrault said the autopsies will include toxicology tests(planting the suggestion that the women were drunk and that a normally "benign" situation got out of hand, and that their "inebration" was the cause of the women not being able to escape the fire) as well as examinations into whether any accelerants such as alcohol or gasoline were found on the bodies.(They were going to a wedding party. They likely had alcoholic beverages in the limousine with them. Makes for an easy mental displacement)
The four women who escaped the fire are were being treated at nearby hospitals. They are identified as: Mary G. Guardiano, 42, of Alameda; Jasmine Desguia, 34, of San Jose; Nelia Arrellano, 36, of Oakland; and amalia Loyola, 48, of San Leandro.
Misses Desguia and Loyola were listed in critical condition Monday, said a spokeswoman for Valley Medical Center. Miss Arrellano was taken to another hospital. Her condition is not yet known. (No mention of Mary Guardiano and her condition. Appears to have been left out on purpose.)
A spokeswoman for Community Medical Center in Fresno said one or more of its employees was in the limo.(Appears to indicate that the spokeswoman for Community Medical Center is in on the murder.)
Limo Stop offers service through limousines, vans and SUVs. Records from the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates limousine companies, show that the company is properly licensed and insured.
Limo Stop issued a statement pledging to do "everything possible" to find the cause of the fire and "bring forth answers and provide closure" (This answer appears "put on;" sounds too much like a politician saying they are going to do everything 'reasonably' possible, which is code for "We're going to try to get out of doing anything at all possible costs") to victims and their families.
(2) http://www.kmph.com/story/22167381/bride-to-be-from-fresno-killed-in-limousine-fire
A bride-to-be killed in limousine fire on San Mateo Bridge. Neriza Fojas, 31, died while on her way to a bachelorette party in Foster City, CA.
The fire started around 10 PM on the westbound lane of the bridge, southeast of San Francisco.
Nine women in total were in the limousine, but only four survived. Police are hoping the survivors can shed some light on what started the fire.
Four women escaped the blaze, with injury, while the driver of the limousine escaped unhurt.
(3) http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-deadly-limo-fire-coroner-share-details-of-horrific-fire-that-left-5-dead-and-4-injured-2-critically-20130505,0,4993794.story(coroner's point of view)
Orville Brown, driver of the limousine, picked up the women in Oakland on Saturday evening, according to Coroner Robert Foucrault. He was hired to drop them off at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Foster City, located about 40 miles away, at a bachelorette party.
The women were all riding in the passenger section of the limousine when they noticed smoke coming from the back of the (attention is called here) 1999 Lincoln Town Car, according to Foucrault. Mr. Brown pulled over to the side on the San Mateo-Hayward bridge.
When Brown got out to inspect the limo he noticed the rear was engulfed in flames, said Foucrault. Three passengers managed to escape through the rear passenger door, while another squeezed through the partition separating the driver from the passengers, he (Foucrault) said. The other five, including the bride-to-be, were found near the partition, said Foucrault.
"It was almost impossible for them to get out as the fire was moving so fast," Foucrault said.
Two surviving passengers, Jasmine Desguia, 34, of San Jose, and Amalia Loyola, 48, of San Leandro were taken to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, where they are being treated for burns and smoke inhalation. Their condition is listed as critical.
The other two surviving passengers - Nelia Arellano, 36, of Oakland and Mary Guardiano, 42, of Alameda -- were taken to Stanford Medical Center. They were treated for moderate burns and smoke inhalation, authorities said. Their conditions are unknown.
Brown, 46, of San Jose, was not injured in the accident. Foucrault said he was "pretty distraught."
The names of the dead have not been released pending proper identification. (Why "proper" identification of the bodies? Does Mr. Foucrault routinely perform "improper" cadaver identifications?)
Foster City Fire Department's arson division is investigating the fire. They said it could take days to determine what caused the blaze.
http://news.yahoo.com/limo-driver-survivor-views-differ-fatal-fire-073441132.html(inside accounts of limo fire from driver and passengers)
(writing from Redwood City, California) As smoke thickened and the fire grew, Nelia Arellano desperately tried to squeeze through a 3'x1 1/2' partition.
Arellano got stuck for a moment, then managed to make her way into the front seat of the limousine. Three friends, Mary Guardiano, Jasmine Desguia, and Amalia Loyola, managed to get through the partition also. The remaining women, including the newlywed bride, or bride-to-be depending on which story you read, perished in the blaze. Their bodies were later found pressed against the partition.
In an interview with KGO-TV on Monday, Arellano said she believed the driver, Orville Brown, could have done more to help during the fire, which took place Saturday night on one of the busiest bridges in San Francisco Bay.
"When he stop the car, he just get out, he just get out from the car," she said.
Arellano and the other women were celebrating the wedding of their friend, Neriza Fojas, and were headed across the San Mateo-Hayward bridge going to a hotel in Foster City.
Brown, a San Jose man who worked for the limo company the past two months, has said in interviews that one of the passengers tapped on the partition behind him, saying something about smoke as music blared from the back. No smoking was allowed, he told them. (Sounds too cozy toward Brown, like the reporter of the story knew Mr. Brown, knew that criminal activity had taken place, and was attempting to cover up for him.)(Furthermore, if Mr. Brown had opened the (window) partition to speak with the women, then it is likely he would have smelled the smoke and stopped the car sooner. The fact that there is no mention of this happening suggests that Mr. Brown did not open the partition but rather left it closed.)
The taps then turned to urgent knocking, and someone screamed, "Pull over!"
Brown said he stopped on the bridge as soon as he could. Then he helped pull the women out through the partition, he said.
One of the women who made it through the partition went to the back and yanked open a door, but Brown said that provided oxygen to the fire and the rear of the limo became engulfed in flames. (This statement is a blatant lie. In a video featured on www.latimes.com under the heading "Limousine's back doors were locked, says fire victim's husband," it clearly shows the read of the limousine engulfed in flames before it was charred, with no one standing outside, and the limo clearly parked on the side of the road. This suggests that Mr. Brown waited for the fire to burn for some time, before exiting the limousine himself and pulling the women through the partition.)
Brown said he believed it was an electrical fire.
"It could have been smoldering for days," he told KGO on Monday, noting there was no explosive boom.(Mr. Brown appears to be trying to throw people off the trail of what really happened. If it was an electrical fire as he said, it could not have been smoldering for days because the electricity from the wires would have caused the limousine to catch fire before Saturday night. Judging by the video, it appears that the fire started in the trunk of the limousine.)
Authorities searched for answers Monday, hoping to learn what sparked the blaze, and why five of the victims couldn't escape it.
The position of the bodies at the partition suggested they were trying to get away from the fire, said San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault. (This would only have happened if they couldn't get out of the rear doors that they entered to get in the passenger area.)
Fojas, 31, a registered nurse from Fresno, was planning to travel to the Philippines to hold another ceremony with relatives. Her friends in the limousine were fellow nurses.
Mrs. Fojas was among the five killed in the fire. Her mother, Sonya, broke into tears during an interview in the Philippines with local TV network GMA News.
"How painful, how painful what happened," she said.
Harry Thomas Jr., U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines, expressed his condolences to the Fojas family.
"Mystery surrounds deadly limo fire," he said in a Twitter message. "Condolences to the Fojas family in the Philippines and the U.S. and other nurses."
Fojas and another woman that died, Michelle Estrera, were nurses at Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno. Jenni Balon, a third victim that perished in the blaze, was identified to the San Francisco Chronicle by her husband.
John Balon, 38, said their 10-year-old daughter cries for her mother at night and is still working on paintings to give her for Mother's Day. His daughter and 1-year-old son are still looking for their mother, he said.
He told his daughter that she is in heaven.
"I told her mom doesn't want us to worry a lot," he told the Chronicle. "She is happy there. She won't be happy if we worry."
The other two victims have not been identified.
The medical center's CEO, Jack Chubb, said in a statement Monday that Fojas and Estrera were outstanding nurses, loved by their patients, colleagues and staff.
"Both were good friends, stellar nurses and excellent mentors who served as preceptors to new nurses," he said.
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