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Deadly mix: trackhoe, no lights, wrong way

By TAMARA EL-KHOURY
Published April 23, 2007

A Largo man has been arrested on a charge of vehicular manslaughter, accused of driving a trackhoe down the wrong side of U.S. 19 and causing a fatal accident.

Augustin Palma-Trejo, 19, was driving against the flow of traffic and did not have the track-hoe's lights on when the accident occurred at 8:24 p.m. Saturday, according to Pinellas Park police.

Police say the victim, who was driving a 1995 Ford truck, swerved to avoid hitting the trackhoe. But the trackhoe's bucket hit the passenger side of the Ford on the truck's front and side, causing it to spin and roll. It came to a stop on its roof about 300 feet away. The victim, a 58-year-old man who lives in Pinellas County, died at the scene. He has not been identified by police because his family has not been notified.

A third vehicle traveling south, a 1995 Buick driven by Rita Todd, 60, of St. Petersburg, swerved to avoid the truck and hit a concrete barricade dividing the road, police said.

She was taken to Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg with serious injuries that were not life threatening.

Palma-Trejo was uninjured and left the crash to tell his supervisor about the accident, police said. He then returned to the scene, according to police. Representatives from the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office went to the accident scene.

Palma-Trejo was arrested and booked into the Pinellas County Jail, where he was being held Sunday without bail.

Police said Palma-Trejo's intended destination seemed to be an area north of 118th Avenue and U.S. 19 for work on phone equipment by a subcontracted company.

[Last modified April 22, 2007, 23:34:43]