Reported by Mark Jenkins
ORLANDO -- Church services went on as scheduled Sunday, just a day after a sport utility vehicle full of children on a church trip flipped over, killing a 6-year-old boy.
Members of Orlando Gospel Assembly said their faith was being tested, but they will continue to find strength.
Eleven people -- 10 children and driver Guerline Saint Juste, 41 -- were in the Ford Explorer on Interstate 95, when the vehicle overturned just before the Volusia-Flagler county line.
Florida Highway Patrol troopers said a right rear tire blew out, and Saint Juste lost control. The SUV hit the guard rail and flipped several times, ejecting some of the children.
Saint Juste suffered minor injuries, but her son, Abimael Saint Juste, 6, did not survive.
“We got two right tires flat, and she went 70 miles an hour,” said Luc Henri, whose two daughters were also in the vehicle at the time of the crash. “There’s nothing she can do when you drive 70 miles an hour, and you get two flat tires on same sides. So she starts rolling, and then that’s what happened.”
Eight of the other 10 children suffered serious injuries. All the children were taken to three nearby hospitals. As of Saturday night, officials told News 13 all of the children were stable.
Henri said one of his daughters was OK, but his 11-year-old was not doing well and needed surgery. Still, he said he did not hold a grudge against the driver.
Troopers said they believe none of the children were wearing seat belts, but they would finish inspecting the vehicle and also talk to the surviving children before making a final determination.
The Explorer had seven seating positions, including the driver’s seat, meaning four of the children would not have had access to their own seat belt.
Charges against Saint Juste are pending, and FHP officials would not speculate what they would be.
According to the Daytona Beach News-Journal, FHP handled 38 deadly crashes in Volusia County in 2008 in which people riding in cars had access to seat belts. Of those, 31 involved deaths related to not wearing seat belts.
Earlier in 2009, Florida became the 28th state to enact a law allowing law enforcement to pull people over for not wearing a seat belt. In the two months since that law went into effect, police in Volusia and Flagler counties have handed out more than 3,100 seat belt violations.
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