Black bear accident, When eight men returning home from a weekend duck-hunting trip spotted a woman standing next to her disabled SUV and a dead black bear, they stopped to help, authorities said.
But minutes after the Miami-Dade residents climbed out of three pickup trucks, three of the hunters were dead and four others injured when a car careened into them on remote Snake Road, about 15 miles northwest of Interstate 75, according to Seminole police.
Killed in the crash Sunday evening were Yoel Menendez, 44, Ricoberto Llanes, 43, and Alain Navarro, 46. All were pronounced dead at the scene, police said.
"They were good Samaritans," said tribe spokesman Gary Bitner. "They were people obviously intent on being helpful, doing the right thing, and then they lose their lives. It's just sad."
What became a chain-reaction tragedy began about 7 p.m. when a southbound SUV driven by Big Cypress resident Caroline Billie ran into a bear just north of the Broward line in Hendry County, police said.
The collision killed the 432-pound bear instantly, police said, and left Billie's SUV disabled in the roadway. Billie was not injured, police said.
After the duck hunters pulled up, a northbound car driven by Hollywood resident Gary McInturff, 45, hit the disabled SUV, sideswiped one of the pickup trucks, then rolled over several times, striking seven of the good Samaritans, police said.
Three members of McInturff's family were in his car, police said.Eight people were transported by ambulance and helicopter to two Broward County hospitals. Of six people taken to Broward Health Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale, four remained hospitalized Monday in conditions ranging from critical to fair, said spokeswoman Carthy Thomas.
Among those admitted to Broward Health were Jose Vega and Mario Cecilio, both of Miami, and a juvenile passenger in the car driven by McInturff, police said.
Treated at Broward Health and released were two other good Samaritans, identified by police as Luis Alberto Collaso, 50, and Luis Rodriguez. McInturff was also treated and released, officials said.
Two others injured on the roadway were treated at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood and released, police said.
Some accident victims were transported in helicopters provided by Metro Dade Fire Rescue and the Broward Sheriff's Office Department of Fire Rescue, which also assisted in ground transportation, according to Bitner. Also involved were teams from Seminole Fire Rescue, he said.Noel Sosa of Cape Coral described Menendez, his brother-in-law, as "a good guy, a family man."
Menendez, the owner of a Hialeah discount store, was an avid outdoorsman who often went hunting and fishing with his friends, Sosa said. Menendez and his wife, Janet, have two sons, Sosa said.
Sosa said he was not sure where the men had been hunting. But Bitner said the road through the reservation is often used by those traveling to and from South Florida to the Clewiston area, on the southwest shore of Lake Okeechobee.
The accident took place on the eastern edge of South Florida's bear habitat, where a 2002 estimate put the bear population at 516 to 878. An updated estimate is expected this summer.
Collisions involving motorists and bears have grown steadily over the last 25 years, along with the populations of people and animals, according to statistics from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Last year, 232 bears were killed by vehicles, up from 43 in 1993.
This year the number killed dropped sharply, with 133 dead so far, largely because there has been an abundance of food, particularly berries, so bears don't have to travel and cross roads to find their meals, said David Telesco, bear management coordinator for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
There have been only two prior cases in which people involved in a bear collision were killed in the past 10 years; both involved motorcycles heading through the Ocala National Forest, he said. To his knowledge, he said, there has never been a fatal bear collision involving a car.
But Sunday's accident might not be included in that count because the fatalities did not directly result from the vehicle striking the male bear.
"It's just an extremely unfortunate situation," he said.
He said it's unlikely the state will take any particular action as a result of this crash, as Hendry County has seen only two bear collisions this year. The state steps in and looks for solutions when a particular stretch of road has seen several such incidents.
Bear-vehicle collisions are rare in South Florida. But this is not the first on the Big Cypress Reservation. Another bear was killed on the reservation in a one-car accident about five years ago, Bitner said. There were no injuries to people.
The number of bears rose sharply in the past half-century, as hunting was banned and bear habitat protected, with most of Florida's bears living in national forests or other land that won't be developed. From a low of 500 or so in the 1950s, the state's bear population has grown to more than 3,000, according to the wildlife commission.
In the South Florida bear management unit, which includes seven counties on the east and west coasts, there were 14 bears killed in collisions last year.
Investigators and other officers from the Seminole Police Department worked into Monday morning to analyze the accident scene. Bitner said. No charges have been filed. The crash remains under investigation, Bitner said.
Although Snake Road takes its name from its winding path, the stretch of road where Sunday's collision took place is straight, Bitner said. He added that the shoulders recently had been widened, and that accidents have decreased.
Bears are most active at dawn and dusk, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokeswoman Carli Segelson said.
"Most accidents happen then," she said. "When driving through heavily wooded areas, use extra caution."
