{"id":337999,"date":"2021-02-05T06:05:38","date_gmt":"2021-02-04T20:05:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=337999"},"modified":"2021-02-05T06:05:38","modified_gmt":"2021-02-04T20:05:38","slug":"artman-claims-fatal-accident-not-their-drivers-fault","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/artman-claims-fatal-accident-not-their-drivers-fault\/","title":{"rendered":"Artman claims fatal accident not their driver\u2019s fault"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Artman Environment Corp. claims that their truck driver was not at fault and did not cause the accident Monday in Puerto Rico, Saipan that killed Raju Bhai.<\/p>\n<p>According to a source within the company who spoke on condition of anonymity since the police investigation is still ongoing, he said the driver of the dump truck and his helper, who also witnessed the incident, told him and the police a consistent story: the traffic light was green and the silver Honda Ridgeline took the turn into the marina when it wasn\u2019t supposed to. <\/p>\n<p>The source said Department of Public Safety investigators have interviewed the dump truck driver and his passenger several times since the accident last Monday and their stories never changed. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI believe my workers. They have worked with me for a very long time and I\u2019m confident they wouldn\u2019t lie,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p>When asked about the circulating surveillance footage of the incident, the source said that you couldn\u2019t see the traffic light to prove that the dump truck driver ran a red light, like what some people are theorizing in social media. <\/p>\n<p>The source said it\u2019s easy to believe that Artman was at fault but the light can\u2019t be seen. It\u2019s also possible that the silver pickup truck ran a red light. <\/p>\n<p>In the surveillance footage that captured the incident, the silver Ridgeline was seen at full stop at the Puerto Rico intersection while cars were speeding past.<\/p>\n<p>When there were no cars in sight, the Ridgeline took the turn into the Smiling Cove Marina. While turning in, the Artman dump truck was seen driving and then crashing into the passenger side of the Ridgeline. The impact of the crash caused Bhai and another man on the back of the puckup to fly out of the vehicle. <\/p>\n<p>In a statement from DPS spokesperson Dre Pangelinan, the case is still under investigation as of 5:27pm yesterday. \u201cAt this time, the department cannot disclose any more information until this case has been completed and finalized. Once the case has been finalized we will share the findings,\u201d he said.<br \/>\nThe accident happened last Monday, at about 1:12pm. <\/p>\n<p>Bhai, one of the passengers of the silver Ridgeline, was pronounced dead on arrival at the Commonwealth Health Center at about 1:39pm. The other occupant was treated and admitted for serious injuries. The vehicle\u2019s driver was treated and released. The two occupants in the garbage truck were not injured.<\/p>\n<p>The garbage truck was southbound before it slammed into the silver Ridgeline, which was making a left turn from the Chalan Pale Arnold intersection. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Artman Environment Corp. claims that their truck driver was not at fault and did not&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":338008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-337999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}