The toll in a head-on collision  between an SUV  making food deliveries and a mini-bus in Chame on Thursday January 24, was originally reported as one person killed and one critically injured.

Since then, it has been revealed that a second victim died in a hospital emergency room, and two were severely injured. One remains in critical condition.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Rescue authorities said that firefighters had to use ”the jaws of life” (hydraulic tweezers) to release the wounded who were trapped in  the wreckage.

Paramedics of SUME 911, the Fire Department and the Civil Protection System (Sinaproc) arrived to assist.

The seriously injured were taken by ambulance to the Regional Hospital Nicolás A. Solano in La Chorrera.

The dead victims were passengers in the bus; Everardo de La Cruz,28, who died at the accident site and his sister Maryi,20,who died at the hospital.

According to witnesses the driver of the truck left his lane and crossed the ditch between the roads:the impact overturned both vehicles with the truck in the ditch and the busito on the road.

So far in 2019 there have been six deaths due to traffic accidents in Panama-West.

On the same day, Marcelino Ureña Pinzón, 25, lost his life after the vehicle, he was driving crashed into a power line post in the Pueblo Nuevo sector of Santiago.