DeathSpace: A Collection of Dead Myspace Users

Myspace Doesn't End At Death

Patrick Riner, 21 -- Car Accident

Published Sunday, October 16, 2005 by Admin | E-mail this post

[10/15/05]

A 21-year-old Davis High School graduate died in Mexico after a taxi he was riding in struck a horse on a highway.

Patrick Riner, who moved from Modesto to San Diego in September, was headed to the Mexican beach town of Rosarito on Saturday for a night out with four friends visiting from Modesto and his girlfriend, Tam-ara Mena-Perez, a 2003 Davis High graduate.

Mena-Perez was injured in the accident and is at UC San Diego Medical Center, where a nurse listed her in fair condition. The other four escaped serious injury.

The accident occurred around 9:30 p.m. after the six friends drove from San Diego to the Mexican border and then walked into Tijuana, where they paid $30 to take a 15-mile taxi ride from Tijuana to Rosarito, said April Valdez, a passenger in the car.

"We heard the clubs and bars down there were fun," said Valdez. "We were trying to be responsible and take a taxi so no one drove."

The taxi was going down a dark, two-lane highway at about 80 mph, Valdez said, while Spanish house music played on the radio. The driver switched on the high beams because the regular headlights weren't working, she said.

It was so dark that nobody saw a horse standing in the middle of the road until it was too late. The horse hit the windshield on the driver's side of the taxi then flipped onto the top of the car, crushing the roof and spinning the car around, Valdez said.

Riner and the taxi driver both died at the scene, she said. Mena-Perez, who was sitting next to Riner in the back seat behind the driver, suffered a broken back, cracked cranium, broken sternum and a broken arm, Valdez said.

Police in Rosarito confirmed that the accident took place and referred questions to an information officer, who could not be reached for comment Wednesday night.

Valdez said she was incredibly frustrated at the slow response of the ambulance and lack of cooperation from the Mexican police.

She said it was 20 minutes before paramedics arrived at the scene, and police gave them the runaround about where they were supposed to go.

They had no cell phone service and were unable to contact family members immediately, she said.

"It is a whole different world down there," Valdez said. "People need to know to be careful."

Valdez, Juan Saenz, 20, Nick Holmes, 21, and Steve Manyen, 21, were not injured but said the incident left them shocked and in disbelief.

Archives