Update 1:23 p.m. CNN has posted its interview with the driver of the limo, Orville Brown …
Update 10: 35 a.m. Here’s a rundown from today’s press conference on the limousine fire that killed five women on their way to a bridal shower Saturday night. The five died when the back of the vehicle burst into flames while crossing the San Mateo Bridge westbound. Four other women and the driver escaped. The bride, Neriza Fojas, did not survive.
From the press conference, in which officials from the California Highway Patrol, Foster City and San Mateo County coroner’s office spoke:
- No cause of the fire has yet to be determined.
- The vehicle was authorized to carry eight passengers or fewer, not the nine that were traveling that night.
- An examination of the victims will be undertaken today in order to positively identify them and notify the families.
- The investigation, by CHP and the Foster City Fire Department, will take up to two weeks to complete.
- An inspection of the vehicle has not been completed yet.
- The vehicle’s maintenance record and the record of the driver will be part of the investigation.
- The professions of the victims, reported in the media as nurses, have not been verified yet.
- The victims were found up against the partition between the back and front, where, the assumption is, they were trying to escape the fire.
Here’s video of the complete press conference.
You can read more about the accident in the Chronicle and the Mercury News. “This is one of the most horrific things I’ve seen in 21 years with this office,” San Mateo County’s medical examiner, Robert Foucrault, told the Chronicle. “Looking at it, they were on top of each other and doing what they could to get out.”