Boy, 8, killed in Blackhawk traffic accident:
Truck driver exonerated by child’s mother and the
Harris County Sheriff’s accident report
On Sunday, May 13, at approximately 6:09 p.m., a tragic accident took place that cost an 8-year-old South Belter his life.
According to his mother, Crystal Garza, and her significant other, Oscar Camara, Abraham “Bubba” Garza Jr. was doing something he loved to do and did frequently – running.
In a Leader interview with Crystal Garza, Camara and his maternal grandmother, Iris Nicholson, the grandmother told of one day when Bubba, his grandmother and mother arrived home, Bubba jumped out of the car, started yelling, “Momma, I love you, Momma, I love you,” and then took off running as the two adult women gave frantic chase trying to retrieve him.
On Sunday evening, Bubba had just been put in a vehicle belonging to his paternal grandparents when he decided to run. As Camara put it, he did not have to be mad or upset to run, he just loved to run, and he was fast. “Why do you think I did not run after him?” asked Camara. “He was too fast for me.” What Camara did do was take off in the car with the grandmother and follow the boy.
“It took about three minutes from start to finish,” said Camara, referring to the time it took Bubba to run out of the car from his home on Sagemorgan until he was hit on the other side of the street on Blackhawk. Camara and the grandmother had taken off in the vehicle immediately to retrieve Bubba.
They witnessed the accident. Camara had made a U-turn in his vehicle in the middle of Blackhawk after Bubba crossed from the sidewalk side of Blackhawk to the median in the four-lane residential boulevard. Camara was the first to reach the boy, feeling to see if he had a pulse. The Southeast Volunteer Fire Department arrived on the scene and called for Life Flight to transport the youth to Memorial Hermann Hospital.
A constable officer who was patrolling the community arrived on the scene immediately after it happened and was the one to call 9-1-1.
Mother doesn’t blame driver
Regarding the driver of the vehicle, 19-year-old Matt Nelson, also a South Belt resident, Crystal Garza told the Leader, “It was not his fault – it was an accident.” Additionally, she was quite upset with the coverage from Channel 11 news, which she said included false information on the accident. (See related editorial Page 2A.)
Crystal Garza said she talked to the driver of the vehicle at the scene and apologized to him for what he was going through. “I told him I was sorry,” she said.
The Harris County Sheriff’s Department also did not hold the driver responsible. Their report reads: “On Sunday, May 13, 2012, at approximately 6:09 p.m. a 19-year-old male, identified as Matthew Nelson, was driving his 1996 Dodge pickup north in the left lane of Blackhawk Blvd. When Mr. Nelson reached the 11400 block, a seven-year-old (sic) male child, identified as Abraham Garza Jr.(complainant) was running across the north bound lanes from the median east toward the east side of the roadway. The complainant failed to yield the right of way to the vehicle and was struck by the vehicle’s front left. The complainant was transported to Memorial Hermann Hospital by Life Flight. The next morning, May 14, 2012, at 7:25 a.m. the complainant died from injuries he sustained in the crash.” Nelson, the driver of the vehicle, was not ticketed.
Residents were shown on Channel 11 complaining about the speeders.
Channel 11 also related the accident to Bubba watching a dead squirrel. One neighbor said the boy had been eyeing it from a neighbors’s yard. Camara, who had the boy in sight the entire time, said this did not happen. The boy had not been standing in a driveway watching anything – he was “just running.”
The neighbor who was interviewed by Channel 11 told the Leader on Tuesday that people get emotional and obviously all the facts were not in the Channel 11 story.
The speed limit is 30 mph on that portion of Blackhawk, a couple of blocks from the scene, on Blackhawk in Sageglen, it is 35 mph.
The street has been a concern for two traffic issues: homeowners are upset about speeders on the street and motorists traveling through the area are upset about residents parking on the four-lane boulevard with driveways being empty.
Harris County conducted a study in 2008 in response to citizen concerns; their conclusion was that while there were drivers speeding, it was not a major problem. (See related story Page 2A.)
Bubba had spent part of Mother’s Day at Bishop Park swinging and playing with silly string.
Nicholson said Bubba had called her early in the morning bragging the he had bought his mother roses and chocolate covered strawberries, “with his own money.”
“What I want people to know about my son is he was a very loving child. He had friends everywhere,” said Crystal Garza.
Crystal Garza told of an incident about a year ago when Bubba noticed a heart emblem on her driver’s license and wanted to know what it was.
She explained that when she died, there would be donations of parts of her body to help others. Bubba told her he wanted to do that, also.
And this week, he did. His heart has now gone to a 6-year-old boy in Wisconsin, and his liver, kidneys, and small and large intestines have been donated, but the family is not yet aware of information on the recipients.
Bubba attended Laura Bush Elementary as a special needs student. The classes he needed were not available at schools closer.
Funeral services have not yet been determined but will be available on the South Belt-Ellington Leader Facebook page as soon as they are made.
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