Bryan Maclean Howard, 41, pleaded not guilty to manslaughter while driving under the influence and remained jailed without bail for Tuesday’s crash. The Florida Highway Patrol reported that Howard was driving his 2001 Ford pickup truck in the center line on a two-lane highway and struck the bus, causing it to go off the road, crash into a tree, and roll over.
Farmworkers headed out early in the morning to harvest watermelons at Cannon Farms in Dunnellon, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) northwest of Orlando in Marion County in north-central Florida, an area rural hilly area where horse farms and fruit and vegetable fields abound.
The Mexican consulate in Orlando was working to support the victims, and staff met with some at a Gainesville hotel. Many were taken to AdventHealth Ocala hospital.
Juan Sabines, Mexico’s consul in Orlando, told Spanish-language media that seven workers, three of whom were in critical condition, remained hospitalized as of Wednesday afternoon.
Sabines said they had contacted the families of the eight workers who died in the accident.
He also said inspectors from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division were conducting workplace inspections, and the consul encouraged workers to call the Occupational Safety and Health Administration with anonymous complaints if They had something to report about the employer. The Labor Department did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
Sabines said he spoke with the bus driver, 44, also Mexican and with a visa.
“What he needs most right away is help with his mental health,” Sabines said.
In the arrest report for the pickup truck driver, state troopers say Howard had red, watery eyes and slurred speech after the crash, which he said he had no memory of.
He told a Florida Highway Patrol investigator that he had crashed his mother’s car into a tree while dodging an animal a few days earlier, and that on Monday night he had taken two anti-seizure medications and medication for high blood pressure, in addition to smoking marijuana oil. She said she woke up about five hours later and was driving to a methadone clinic where she receives daily medication for a chipped vertebra, according to the affidavit.
Howard then failed several field sobriety tests and was arrested, the Florida Highway Patrol said.
He told a judge via teleconference from jail Wednesday that he works independently as a painter and drywaller, had no dependents and had $700 in the bank and no other assets. Howard had his head bandaged and was wearing a protective gown usually given to inmates on guard to prevent suicides. The judge denied him bail, assigned him a public defender and set his next court appearance for next month.
Howard’s parents did not respond to a phone message seeking comment Wednesday, and the Marion County public defender’s office declined to comment.
Marion County court records show Howard has had at least three vehicle accidents and numerous traffic tickets since 2006, including a citation for crossing the center line. He has had his license suspended at least three times, the last in 2021 for accumulating too many fines in one year. In 2013 he was convicted of robbery. A year later, his probation was revoked after he tested positive for cocaine.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Wednesday morning that 44 Mexican farm workers were on the bus, and that they had been hired by a Mexican-American farmer to work on the watermelon farm on H-2A visas. Florida farms use about 50,000 workers on H-2A visas each year, more than any other state, according to the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association.
Six of the dead have been identified: Evarado Ventura Hernández, 30 years old; Cristian Salazar Villeda, 24; Alfredo Tovar Sánchez, 20; Isaías Miranda Pascal, 21; José Heriberto Fraga Acosta, 27; and Manuel Pérez Ríos, 46.
José Ventura told Univision that Evarado Ventura Hernández was his younger brother and that he had helped him come to work in the United States. He said his brother had left behind a young daughter.
“We come for a better future, but you see what we found. We found death,” she told the Spanish-language network.
Sobbing, she added: “I had to take care of him. I had to take care of my brother because he was the youngest.”
More than twenty people gathered Wednesday afternoon at a memorial service for the victims in front of the Florida Farm Workers Association office, north of Orlando, in Apopka. Some people held white crosses with the names of the victims, others spoke and others sang songs in Spanish.
“Thank you to everyone who has reached out and offered condolences, help and prayers” for those injured in the crash, Cannon Farms said in a post on its Facebook page. He said the bus was operated by Olvera Trucking Harvesting Corp.
No one answered the phone at Olvera Trucking after the accident. The company recently announced it was looking for a temporary driver to bus workers to watermelon fields and then operate harvesting equipment, at $14.77 an hour.
A Department of Labor document shows Olvera also applied for 43 H-2A workers to harvest watermelons at Cannon Farms this month, again at a base wage of $14.77 an hour, with promises of lodging and transportation to and from the fields. .
The H-2A program allows U.S. employers or agents who meet certain requirements to bring foreign nationals into the country to fill temporary agricultural jobs. Getting to and from the fields can be dangerous: Federal statistics show that traffic accidents were the leading cause of work-related deaths among farm workers in 2022, the latest year available. They represented 81 of the 171 fatalities.
Olvera’s vehicle, which the highway patrol described as a “retired” school bus, did not have seat belts, Sabines said Wednesday.
The Department of Labor announced new seat belt requirements for employer vehicles used for agricultural workers on temporary visas, among other worker protections that go into effect June 28. Florida law already requires seat belts for transporting farm workers in vehicles less than 10,000 pounds (4,500 kilograms). The Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association has called the new federal seat belt requirement “impractical.”
Activist groups called for stricter laws and more timely enforcement to protect farmworkers, while a GoFundMe campaign organized by the Florida Farmworkers Association to support crash victims and their families had raised nearly $58,000 on Tuesday. Wednesday evening.
Source: With information from AP
