Tampabay: Inches from disaster

Inches from disaster

A truck careens off a highway overpass and lands on a bus. The truck's driver dies - the accident's only fatality.

By WES ALLISON

ST. PETERSBURG -- The furniture truck, southbound on an Interstate 275 overpass, veered into a guardrail and began shucking chunks of concrete onto the street below, smashing the roofs and windshields of several vehicles.

The front tires and axle broke free and dropped onto a pickup truck, missing the driver's head by inches. Moments later, the rest of the truck careened off the highway and fell 20 feet onto a commuter bus carrying six people.

All told, a dozen people were involved in Monday morning's rush-hour wreck at 54th Avenue S. Nine were taken to hospitals and two were seriously injured.

But the only one who died was a man who walked away.

Jose Barbosa, 37, of Tampa, the driver of the furniture truck, fought off rescuers who urged him to stay still and clawed his way out of the mangled cab. Witnesses said he was up and walking before paramedics drove him to Bayfront Medical Center, where he died about an hour later.

For 11 others, including Barbosa's 16-year-old son, it was a morning of impossibly close calls, of seconds that likely meant the difference between life and death. Of hastily offered prayers, quickly answered.

Witnesses and firefighters alike marveled that more weren't killed.

"It happened so fast . . . there was no way to react. It was God watching over us," said a shaken Carol Dziubek, 51, who was stopped in westbound traffic on 54th Avenue S when a chunk of concrete smashed into the windshield of her blue-green Nissan. Neither she nor her passenger was hurt.

"I'm going to go to Mass at 12 o'clock and thank God I'm okay, and pray for those who aren't."

Barbosa and his son, Matthew Jay Malave, were making a delivery from Kane's Furniture in St. Petersburg to Sarasota about 8 a.m. when he lost control at the 54th Avenue S overpass.

Alfred Bennings was pedaling toward the bridge on 54th Avenue when he heard, then saw, the truck strike the concrete guardrail. It knocked concrete chunks and metal parts onto cars below as it skidded along the rail, then lost its front axle.

The axle -- wheels, tires and all -- flipped over the rail and crashed into a red Chevrolet pickup truck in front of Dziubek. It nipped the pickup's cab just inches from the driver, Tim Rowe, before crushing his truck bed.

Victor Reyes, who was stopped behind Rowe's Chevy, watched in disbelief as the axle dropped and felt his own pickup being rocked by concrete chunks the size of frozen turkeys.

Meanwhile, a PSTA bus bound for Pinellas Point with five passengers trundled east on 54th Avenue S. Just as the bus passed under the bridge, the furniture truck pitched over the guard rail.

Bennings, a hotel worker celebrating his 36th birthday, froze and watched in horror.

"The bus had no knowledge what was coming," he said. "I was praying to God that it didn't land right on top of that bus."

The nose of the truck clipped the front of the bus, just inches from where driver Dale Yoho sat. It then hit the asphalt and toppled onto its side.

Bennings whipped his red bike around and summoned a Sunstar ambulance parked at a nearby Amoco.

Reyes and a passenger in his pickup, Larry Sams, rushed to help, as did Dziubek and others.

"I didn't want to go over there. I figured those guys are dead, there's no way you can really survive that," Reyes said. "But they did. I just thank God."

Barbosa and his son were were trapped in a tangle of sheet metal, plastic and steel, but both were conscious. The rescuers said they could do little but tell them to remain calm, that help was on the way.

Paramedics were on the scene in seconds, witnesses said. They advised Barbosa to stay still, but he continued fighting until he freed himself. Witnesses were stunned when word filtered back that he had died.

"He said, "Get me out!' I said, "Just stay there,' " Sams recalled. "But he was coming out."

Barbosa was taken to Bayfront while firefighters worked for 50 minutes to free Matthew. He was in fair condition Monday night.

Yoho, 56, a PSTA driver for 18 years, was badly cut by flying debris, his face covered in blood, but he made his way down the aisle of the bus and manually freed the doors so his passengers could escape. All five were taken to local hospitals as a precaution, but none appeared seriously injured, St. Petersburg fire Lt. Chris Bengivengo said.

Yoho was treated at a local hospital and was expected to be released Monday night.

"If the timing had been a second later, he would have landed on that bus," Bengivengo said. "I think we got really lucky."

Maria Barbosa was on her way to her first day at a new job at Centex Homes in Sarasota when the hospital called her cell phone. She had tried to call Jose earlier that morning, around 8, but he didn't answer.

"Deep in my heart, I knew something was wrong," she said.

She described her husband as a loving father to three, ages 8, 12 and 16. Matthew, a junior at Wharton High School in Tampa, takes classes at night and works days, usually at Burger King on Busch Boulevard. He often helped deliver furniture for extra money, Mrs. Barbosa said.

Barbosa had been convicted of numerous traffic violations, state records show, including two charges of driving under the influence, mostly recently in spring 1999. His employer, Reliable Delivery Co., did not return phone calls seeking comment on Monday.

State records show he had a valid chauffeur's license that allowed him to drive the delivery truck. The accident remains under investigation.

Mrs. Barbosa said Matthew told her they simply lost control of the truck on the wet highway.

Monday morning, before work, Jose Barbosa fried bacon for breakfast while his wife packed him and Matthew sandwiches, root beer, fruit and bran muffins for lunch. Then she drove them to Kane's warehouse in St. Petersburg.

"He got out of the car and started walking toward the warehouse, but then he turned around, came back and gave me a kiss," Mrs. Barbosa said, starting to cry. "We always kiss goodnight, too, because you never know what can happen. There are no guarantees."