By Daniel Borunda
The El Paso Times
EL PASO, N.M. — A woman saved the lives of two children before she died in a fiery crash late Wednesday afternoon on Interstate 10 near the University of Texas at El Paso.
The woman died when a sport utility vehicle she was driving erupted in flames after she handed the children — an 8-year-old girl and a 4-year-old boy — to rescuers, El Paso police said.
“The operator (driver) actually handed the kids out of the vehicle to two witnesses that stopped to render aid,” said police spokesman Darrel Petry.
Petry said the children were hospitalized in stable condition but the girl suffered third-degree burns to her body. The relationship between the children and the woman had not been confirmed Wednesday evening.
Names were not to be released until the victim’s family was notified.
Traffic investigators were attempting to find what caused the crash, which occurred minutes before 4 p.m. on the westbound lanes of Interstate 10 between the Schuster Avenue entrance and the Executive Center Drive exit.
For unknown reasons, the SUV driven by the woman tipped onto its side, slid across three lanes and stopped on the right emergency lane, Petry said.
As the SUV began to burn, the woman handed the children to the men who stopped to help.
“She couldn’t get out before the fire consumed the vehicle,” said police spokesman Detective Mike Baranyay.
A billow of black smoke rose from the wreckage. It also appeared that another vehicle stopped at the scene had damage as if it had been clipped.
The fatal crash clogged traffic headed to the West Side for more than four hours. There are no frontage roads on that section of the freeway, which runs past mountains next to UTEP.
A line of vehicles stretched for hours on the freeway east past Downtown. North Mesa and Stanton were also clogged.
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