Driver charged with DUI manslaughter in farmworker bus crash

The Florida Highway Patrol said Tuesday that the driver of a pickup truck was under the influence when he crashed into a bus carrying farmworkers, killing eight people and injuring 38 more.

Bryan Maclean Howard was charged with eight counts of DUI manslaughter, after he allegedly sideswiped the bus while driving his 2001 Ford Ranger pickup truck earlier in the morning.

Roger Waddell, a spokesman for Marion County, said eight of those transported to local hospitals are listed in critical condition. Thirty people remain hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, according to a county news release. MacLean Howard was also injured.

The crash occurred on a two-lane highway in a rural community near Ocala, north of Orlando. Thousands of migrants and farmworkers are drawn to the state each year for jobs in the agricultural sector. Fifty-three farmworkers are believed to have been on the bus at the time of the collision.

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The Florida Highway Patrol said in a news release that after crash, the bus veered off the roadway, broke through a fence and overturned. Marion County Fire Chief James Banta said 35 fire rescue units responded to what he described as “a devastating bus wreck.”

Representatives from the Farmworkers Association of Florida, an advocacy group for immigrant workers, were in contact with family members who were seeking information about the people on the bus.

Ernesto Ruiz, research coordinator for the association, said the people on the bus were H2A workers from Mexico who were being housed in a hotel in Gainesville. They were being transported in a 14-year-old converted school bus to a farm 45 miles away.

“We’ve been in contact with the Mexican consulate. We’ve talked with one man whose brother was on the bus. He said he hasn’t been able to contact him,” Ruiz said.

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On Facebook, Cannon Farms, where the workers were scheduled to harvest watermelons, said the business would be closed for the day “out of respect to the losses and injuries endured this morning.” It added that the crash involved the Olvera Trucking Harvesting Corp. Neither business could immediately be reached for comment.

An estimated 150,000 to 200,000 migrant and seasonal farmworkers, as well as their families, travel and work in Florida each year, according to the state Department of Health.

Florida employs more farmworkers than any state but California, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, at an average pay of $14.40 an hour.

Ruiz said his organization is setting up a GoFundMe account to help the survivors of the accident and the families of the dead.

“We live in a state that has a very anti-immigrant sentiment,” he said. “We rely on these vulnerable populations, but they are in the shadows. The only time we hear about them is when these tragedies happen.”

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