WARNING: Video above includes footage that may be disturbing to some viewers, viewer discretion is advised.
One minute a Ferris police officer was helping on a traffic stop, the next he witnessed the horrendous wrong way, head-on accident Sunday night that killed four. The accident happened in the southbound lanes of I-45 E near the Dallas County town of Wilmer.
“I was going to try to take the impact before anyone else, me and my dog in my patrol vehicle, but that vehicle was just going way too fast” said Ferris Officer Charles Banks, who tried using his flashing lights and his police spotlight. But he says the other driver wasn’t paying attention. “At that moment I was trying to do my best to try to keep everybody alive.”
The Dallas County Medical Examiner has the woman suspected of driving the wrong way as Francisca Granados-Fuentes, 33, Dallas. Also killed in her van two year old Gabriela Fuentes and one-year old Justino Jaimes. The man who was driving the SUV that was hit by Granados-Fuentes has previously been identified as Michael Coyne, 28, Palestine.
Just how Grandos-Fuentes got into the wrong lanes and the length of time she drove the wrong way is still a matter of investigation. “City hall is in the process of redacting the report for release,” Wilmer Police Lieutenant John Rhodes wrote in an e-mail.
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The report of the wrong way driver was broadcast by police dispatchers less than two minutes before the crash. Banks, who was helping on the traffic stop nearby, rushed to the Interstate in time to see Granados-Fuentes approaching. He says he flashed his spotlight at the car, but there was a blanket covering the passenger window, blocking any effectiveness of the bright light.
“She still wouldn’t slow down,” Banks said. “As I looked over to my left I saw a red SVU, probably going north of 70 miles an hour just hit her head on.”
A body camera video released by the City of Ferris shows Banks frantically calling for help as he stopped on the shoulder of the northbound lanes, hop the wall and run toward the still-smoking vehicles.
The video shows that stark magnitude of the collision. Banks quickly determined Granados-Fuentes was dead, but did not know her two children were also in her van. He focused on the SUV and Coyne, who he ways was still alive.
“I was trying to tell him to ‘stay with me, stay with me.’ He was trying to explain to me that he was hurt. I was doing the best that I can to tell him to stay with me. I knew that he was hurt very badly.”
It was then that Banks heard a scream from the back. He found the two teenagers in the back. Coyne family members had said the Palestine school teacher had taken the two to a Dallas Mavericks Game and was driving home when the accident happened.
The body camera video shows Banks frantically using his flashlight to try and slow traffic and send vehicles, still driving between 65 and 70 miles an hour, around the dark stretch of road. At one point a car is heard skidding as it narrowly missed the SUV. Minutes later Wilmer police arrived. It was a Wilmer officer who found one child in Granados-Fuentes’ van. It was a while later before the body of the second child was discovered.
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