Victims of High-Speed DUI Crash in Oakland Released From Hospital
OAKLAND (KPIX) -- Ten victims of a suspected DUI crash returned home from the hospital this weekend. The dramatic high-speed crash Thursday night crash in Oakland was caught on camera.
All the victims were traveling in a Honda Odyssey minivan when a Pontiac G6 plowed into them. Witnesses jumped into action and carried the children out of the van to wait for paramedics.
The family said the force of the impact ejected a nine-year-old girl from the van. She suffered from a dislocated shoulder and head injuries. The other victims also had severe pain from a number of injuries. Many of them could not move after the crash. They said they were extremely lucky to survive the crash.
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Keren Martinez said she was driving the van.
"Really bad, really bad with pain. My body and, emotionally -- there's a lot of pain," she said.
Oakland police said the driver of the Pontiac was driving drunk, going about 90 miles an hour and running the red light before hitting the van at the intersection of International Boulevard and 38th Avenue. Witnesses held him down after he tried to run.
A law enforcement source told KPIX the driver arrested in the crash had a prior DUI arrest in 2015.
"I hope that he learned the lesson but we don't want to say anything. We don't want to hate anybody. So we want to learn (from) this. We thank God that we're alive and we want to be positive," Martinez said.
Martinez said there were seven children and three adults in the van, including her sister Anahi Uribe riding in the passenger seat. Uribe is the mother of the children and is also pregnant. Doctors told her the baby should be fine.
"(I'm) nervous and scared but I'm glad the children are here. Thank God they're alive," Uribe said.
The kids were released from Oakland Children's Hospital Saturday night. Their ages are from 2 to 14. They were quiet during the interview and appeared to be still in pain and still in shock.
Martinez said the 10 of them were, at first, traveling in two different vehicles. After her boyfriend parked his car a block away from their apartment, she said he and some of the kids hopped into her van to park in front of the apartment, near the crash scene.
"We're going to learn from this ... we need to be with seat belts," Martinez said.
Oakland councilman Noel Gallo is working with the family to try to get them financial help.
