Hugo Alamos, standing on Daytona Beach with his family, first heard a loud boom “like a bomb”, then was horrified to see his 5-year-old son disappear under a barrel car as it stopped beside him in the ocean.
People scattered and ran out, but her son, David, couldn’t move fast enough.
“After a few seconds I saw my child come out from under the car,” Alamos said Monday in Spanish. “My son had two open cuts, one on his right arm and one on his chest.”
Alamos, of Nashville, Tenn., said she grabbed her boy and called for help. Beach patrol officers and paramedics arrived to help, he said.
“They (the medical staff) closed the open wounds that he had, but he’s still very scared,” Alamos said of his son. “He’s doing a lot better.”
Alamos spoke about the incident Monday at Halifax Health Medical Center. Her son was released from the hospital later that day, she said.
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The driver may have had a seizure
Volusia County Beach Safety Ocean Rescue officials released a report Monday saying the driver of the car, Christian Rivera Rosado, 28, of Springfield, Mass., apparently had a seizure and lost control of your Nissan Altima. The car crashed into the empty toll booth at the International Speedway Boulevard beach approach and continued onto the beach and into the ocean.
Rivera Rosado’s wife, Yashira De Jesus Guzman, was in the front passenger seat, and two girls, ages 10 and 13, were in the back seat of the car when it crashed into the beach, officials said. Ocean Rescue in its report.
The car’s occupants were taken to a hospital for treatment, authorities said.
Rivera Rosado, who said he had no recollection of the incident, was cited for careless driving, according to the report. He could not be reached for comment Monday.
The crash remains under investigation, and Alamos said he’s still trying to process what he and his family and friends witnessed Sunday at Daytona Beach.
“I just felt they weren’t in the right place”
Alamos, his friends and their families, had just arrived at the beach just before Sunday’s accident. Seve the family got off in front of him as he found a place to park his van.
When she got to the beach, she was told her four children were already in the ocean with their friends, and she walked over to them to move them to another part of the beach, she said.
“I just felt they weren’t in the right place and I was going to move them from where they were,” Alamos recalled. “But I heard something like a bomb, boom, and I turned and saw the car running towards the sea.”
People scattered and ran outside, but her young son, David, was mowed down by the car, Alamos said.
“I was very scared for my son. I was also very scared for my wife, who is pregnant,” Alamos said. “It was just unreal.”
Other vehicles have crashed on the beach
There have been other incidents where vehicles have crashed into the beach from nearby roads and injured people, including one in which a woman died in Daytona Beach Shores.
In 2019, William Johnson, 82, of Yarmouth, Mass., lost control of his vehicle while making a U-turn at Atlantic Avenue and Robert Road in Ormond-by-the-Sea, Patrol investigators said of Florida Highways.
Troopers said Johnson drifted onto the shoulder of the road and ended up going through a parking lot, breaking through a wooden fence and part of the ramp leading to Al Weeks Sr. Beach. North Shore Park.
Johnson’s sport utility vehicle crashed into four children, all hospitalized, according to FHP.
Three of the children and Johnson were rushed to Halifax Health Medical Center by ambulance, troopers said.
A 5-year-old girl suffered traumatic injuries and was airlifted to another hospital, officials said.
In 2014, a 45-year-old North Carolina woman walking on the beach with her family was killed when a motorist crashed her car through a closed gate at the Dunlawton Avenue beach approach in Daytona Beach Shores.
The woman’s family, including her children, were able to get out of the way, but were struck and killed, officers said.
