Nine-year paramedic hero killed in crash
A medical emergency supervisor who spent nine years with the Unified Emergency Management System (Sume 911)., pulling bodies and injured people from mangled vehicles became Panama’s 143rd traffic fatality of the year on Friday, June 1.
Luis “Villa” Antonio Guerra 47, was driving his taxi on the way to his home to pick up the family for a trip to his Chiriqui when he was killed at 8.15 a.m. on the road leading to the Port of Vacamonte, Arraiján, in the province of Panama West near a newly activated Sume 911 unit.
Witnesses said he slowed down because the road was in poor condition when he was hit from behind by an articulated truck, lost control of the steering wheel and collided head-on with a dump truck. The engine of the taxi was torn out and Guerra, like so many he had attended to as a paramedic, was trapped in the wreckage,
His rescue colleagues were at the scene in minutes but the operations supervisor (and instructor) was already dead.
Members of the Fire Department freed his body.
Gil Fábrega, Executive Director of Sume 911, went to the accident site and praised Guerra as ” a life-saving hero, with a gift for communicating with and helping people whose lives were in danger in the midst of a tragedy”
Officials of the National Traffic Operations Directorate (DNOT) and officials of the Public Prosecutor’s Office are investigating the two trucks involved in the incident which led to an hours-long traffic jam.
