After falling 300 feet down a ravine: Unidentified pa and son die in car crash

A father and his young son met their fiery death in a car crash in barangay Busay, Cebu City yesterday morning.

The Hyundai Excel car fell 300 feet into a ravine after the driver reportedly lost control in the area of sitio Maaslom.

The car, bearing plate number GTS 826, which possibly came from other neighboring mountain barangays or from Balamban town passing through the Transcentral Highway, was on its way to Cebu City.

Busay barangay captain Eliodoro 'Yodi' Sanchez said that based on the accounts of one of the motorists, the car was traveling downhill while negotiating a blind curve but was not speeding.

He said that there was a possibility that the driver lost control of the steering wheel.

While the car was rolling down the cliff, witnesses heard an explosion and saw the vehicle burst into flames and then two more explosions were heard before the car landed near the bottom.

If not for the mango trees and bamboos, the car would have rolled to the bottom of the ravine.

Darvy Arcillo, a resident of barangay Busay, who was driving his multicab and was behind the victims shortly before the accident, and Antonio del Mar, who owns an auto repair shop near the place, rushed to the rescue.

It took them 20 minutes to reach the car and they were able to pull out the child, estimated to be around nine years old, after they heard him shouting to help him and his father.

"Tabangi mi ninyo sa akong papa," (Help me and my father) the boy was quoted by the rescuers.

When the child was pulled out from the car, they rescuers said that they saw that he a big wound on his head and his face was covered with blood. Most of his body was also badly burned.

The barangay tanods, who also went down to assist Arcillo and Del Mar were the ones to pull out the driver.

The two victims were still conscious when they were pulled out of the wreck. Rescuers said that the man would even shout because it was painful when he was touched.

Sanchez said that the residents who rescued the victims also waited for the team coming from both the ERUF and the city fire department to arrive at the scene as they could not bring the victims up to the road because of the terrain and stretchers were needed to carry them.

Due to the severity of the burns, the two victims could not be immediately identified as their clothes were also totally burned and no means of identification was found.

A cellular phone was recovered, but it was also unserviceable as a portion of it was eaten by fire.

The first rescuers thought the place where the car rested was only about a hundred feet, but they learned from the ERUF paramedics that it was about 300 as they tied together two 300-foot ropes to reach the spot.

Both victims were brought to the Perpetual Succour hospital but were declared dead on arrival by Dr. Carlo Carrido.

Both died of severe burns and the other cause of the child's death was the wound he sustained on his head.

Dr. Carrido said that the body of the child was even bloated because of the severity of the burns.

In a check at the LTO-7 office it was learned that the white Hyundai Excel car with plate number GTS 826 is registered under the name of Saturnino Plaza of Balamban, Cebu. It was registered last June 6, 2006, but the city traffic division is yet to confirm the names of those inside the car during the accident.

Balamban Councilor Dave John Karamihan told The FREEMAN last night that the town police has not yet been contacted to help identify the victims and learned about the accident only from TV reports.

Karamihan said that the Balamban police would still try to help identify the victims and will look for the person whose name appears on the car's registration papers.

The bodies of the victims are still at the morgue of the Perpetual Succour Hospital. Nobody has claimed the bodies as of presstime last night.