What was supposed to be a fun Halloween night turned fatal for 3 families in California.
Three teenagers were killed in a car accident on Skyline Boulevard just south of Bear Gulch Road in San Mateo County on Halloween night.
The teen boys were not only very close friends, but two belonged to Explorer Post 109 sponsored by the Menlo Park Fire District and one was the oldest son of the Fire District’s Master Mechanic, Rudy Torres who worked for the District for 14 years.
The Menlo Park Fire District helped find the three boys early on Wednesday morning and were on-site as the boys’ bodies were removed from the wreckage.
Rudy Torres, (Ricky’s Father) Gary Cruz (Matthews’s dad) and Jason Perez (Andrews big brother) knew something was wrong when they found the boys had not returned home early on Wednesday morning, after going out the night before to look at a car Andrew was interested in buying.
The Menlo Park District says that the three boys set-off in Torres’s Fire Vehicle equipped with emergency radios after locating one of the boy’s phones along Skyline Boulevard at 6 am, and notifying the Sheriff’s Department that they were missing.
Torre’s then asked for the help of the Fire District to mount a search and rescue mission and two Chief Officers were immediately deployed to the area with a Drone while another was sent to the Torres home in North Fair Oaks to check on his wife and younger son.
They later met up with San Mateo County Sheriff’s Deputies at Alice’s Restaurant located at the corner of Highway 84 and 35 at about 7.15 am and proceeded South on Skyline Boulevard for about two miles where just south of Bear Gulch Road a Deputy first spotted skid marks on the road.
Perez noticed the car first about 50 feet down the hill and the three men ran down the ridge where they found the car upright with its roof completely crushed.
The three teens were found dead inside the vehicle. They were all still in their seatbelts.
The two fathers and older brother spent the next hour holding an extremely emotional vigil at the vehicle as first responders from Cal-Fire, San Mateo County Fire and the Woodside and Menlo Park Fire District’s arrived.
They were followed by the CHP and San Mateo County Coroners Office who along with the Sheriff’s Deputies thoughtfully constructed a plan to carefully and respectfully remove the young men from the vehicle.
It took firefighters about 45 minutes to disassembled the vehicle to remove their bodies.
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The Coroner’s Office representatives allowed the family members to say their goodbyes after each of the young men were removed from the vehicle and placed in a transportation vehicle.
Ricardo Seneca Torres 19, Andrew Rogelio Gonzales 19 and Matthew Edward Eric Cruz 18 took one last ride together to County Center in Redwood City.
The three friends were described by all who knew them as “good kids with bright futures”.
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Menlo Park Firefighters have reached out to support the affected families and anyone else touched by this tragedy. “There’s a lot of love, compassion, understanding, and patience being shown to them, we know it’s hard but they know they can lean on us for support as they grieve and everyone try’s to come to terms with the devastating loss of these three fine young men” the Chief said.