A 60-year-old West Covina man killed in an automobile accident with a fire truck in Mira Loma has been identified as Agustin Nava Miramontes.

Miramontes was killed in a wrongful death car accident on the morning of February 4, 2009 after his Dodge Ram broadsided a Riverside County fire engine at the intersection of Etiwanda Avenue and Van Buren Boulevard.

Ironically, the fire engine was apparently responding to a serious injury auto accident about a block away from where this fire truck accident occurred.  The southbound engine reached the intersection and a red light.

According to eyewitnesses, all lights were red at that intersection except for a green light for eastbound traffic, but Miramontes’ pickup truck had the green light.  Off hand, it would appear that the fire engine possibly caused the wrongful death auto accident by running the red light.

Although California law requires car drivers to stop and yield to emergency vehicles at intersections, Riverside County fire officials say their department’s policy is for fire engines to always make a full stop at an intersection even while responding with lights and sirens – to wait to proceed once traffic is clear.  Whether this particular fire engine stopped at the intersection is still under investigation.

The most important detail from this investigation that we, as experienced wrongful death attorneys, like to know is whether the fire engine did make the stop that they were required to at that intersection, based on their own department policy. If they did not follow proper protocol, then the governmental agency that runs the fire department could be held liable for the wrongful death truck accident and Miramontes’ fatal injuries.

Please contact us for a free consultation with an experienced car accident attorney — we speak both English and Spanish — at (800) 655-6585.  Click here and you may also submit your case for a Free Review.  No fee if no recovery.

About Michael Pines

Michael Pines is a former insurance company attorney who specializes in car accident injury. While he was an insurance attorney, he learned from behind the scenes on how insurance companies work and how they decided to pay injured people. Now that he works against insurance companies, Michael's inside knowledge has resulted in significant benefits to his clients injured in car accidents.

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