MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Surveillance video shows a speeding gray minivan with the passenger rear-side door open heading toward a canal on Sunday in south Miami-Dade County.
Johanna Madrigal, 45, was driving. Her daughter Alexa Olivares, 18, was the front passenger. Her 2-year-old daughter and 22-year-old son Enrique Santamaria were in the back seat.
Witnesses said the van sped through a guard rail, went airborne, and landed on its side. Nashira Amundarian, a witness, said Madrigal drove straight toward the canal without any hesitation.
“I don’t think it was an accident,” Amundarian said on Monday.
The crash killed Santamaria near the intersection of Southwest 248th Street and Southwest 110th Avenue in Miami-Dade’s Princeton neighborhood.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue personnel in a helicopter picked up the girl and ambulances took Madrigal and Olivares to the Kendall Regional Medical Center.
Friends of the family were there on Tuesday waiting for updates on their condition. They described Santamaria as “amazing” and a “saint.” Their neighbors were also saddened.
“It’s something terrible that’s happened to that family ... God bless them,” Gabriella Valdez-Perez said.
On Tuesday evening, Miami-Dade detectives were still investigating the cause of the crash.
NOON REPORT