And while the Gonguez family watched their loved ones dying on the road while desperately pleading for help from passersby, a video of their pain made its rounds on social media and messaging platforms at 4g speeds. In that video, there are several onlookers with their own phones out, ignoring the family's cries for help.
The video traveled many miles in a span of minutes, alerting the other family members both in Belize City and Dangriga of the car accident. And to them, it is unsettling that they found out about the incident through social media without being able to call and comfort their loved ones.
Leea Valencia's aunt, who was one of those family members, expressed her distress at the video and the subsequent negative comments that blamed her family for the accident.
Voice of: Survivor
"For me as the elder I was very distraught knowing that my family was out there perishing, pleading for their lives and people stood by actually videoing the whole incident. It got posted on facebook before I even knew that my family members were out there perishing, people already seeing this video. By the time I got the news and was trying to reach out to people to get help they were asking me if this was the video that they are seeing out there. I didn't even know about the video. Again, all the negative comments that people are putting out there. If you dent know anything please dent assume. My brother was not high on anything, he is an experience and careful driver. If he was driving with speed the whole family would have died. So I am begging and asking people to please stop with your negativeness and this is not only for my family, it's been something that I think that we Belizean take it as a practice now that everything is social media. This is devastating to our country because it happens over and over and nobody says anything about it."
"My brother is still traumatized. He still can't live with the fact that that happened, because he was trying his best not for that to happen. So for you to be in a hospital immediately after an accident and you want to take blood and I am not focusing... come on."
"My brother was already dead if it wasn't for his wife that gave his back life. He is still in pain and everybody is still shaken up. They could go and do all their investigation on the van and they will see that that was a mechanical problem, accident happens to everybody. The van was seated for that capacity and there was only 9 adults in the vehicle. Everybody else were kids. It could have not been over weighted."
The family is now looking at how they can take legal action.
