Nine-year paramedic hero killed in crash

 
1,110Views 1Comments Posted 02/06/2018

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.