GAINESVILLE — The farmworkers packed into the white bus by the dozen.
In the early morning darkness, they rode along a rural highway, winding through horse country on their way to the watermelon fields of Dunnellon. Air whipped through open windows, while the noisy engine rattled. The workers ate breakfast, drifted to sleep and chatted in Spanish as their hourlong commute neared its end.
Not everyone could see the truck approaching.
But Rodolfo de la Cruz sat at the front of the bus. With the rising sun, he caught a flash of the pickup just as it swerved into their path. Near him, workers gripped their seats, bracing for impact.
Metal on metal. A preternatural screech. The force silencing more than 50 workers, who were jolted from their rows — no seat belts, they said, to offer them protection.
The bus darted off the highway, plowed through two fences and struck a tree before flipping and sending de la Cruz and his co-workers flying. It landed on its side, in a field, windows shattered. A trail of tire tracks outlined its deadly course.
Inside, workers yelled and cried out in pain. They searched for exits and each other. They saw lifeless and passed-out colleagues, their bodies bloodied with gaping wounds that exposed bone. They tried to grapple with what had just occurred.
Blood streaked de la Cruz’s face and torn clothes. Hours later, a hospital band around his wrist, the 36-year-old remained too shocked to wash it off. He still couldn’t believe he’d made it out.
It’s a miracle I’m alive.
A leading cause of death
The crash killed eight farmworkers and injured at least four dozen others early Tuesday along State Road 40 outside Ocala. It was a collision of worlds. A local driver — allowed on the road despite a lengthy history of traffic offenses — slammed into a bus filled with dozens of temporary migrant laborers who’d traveled thousands of miles to harvest food that would end up on tables across America.
Police say the pickup’s driver, 41-year-old Bryan Maclean Howard, was impaired. He faces eight counts of manslaughter charges and is being held in the Marion County Jail without bond.
In the hours after the crash, seven workers spoke to the Tampa Bay Times, recounting what happened on the bus, provided by Olvera Trucking Corp., and their experiences with the company. They described long hours, strenuous labor, and now, a tragedy that has made them question whether any of their sacrifices have been worth it.
The crash is among the deadliest involving Florida farmworkers within the past two decades. It marks another chapter in a long history of crashes involving laborers that has left dozens dead and injured across the state. Nationally, vehicle collisions were the leading cause of job-related deaths among farmworkers involved in harvesting in 2022, the most recent year federal data is available.
Like the Olvera workers, laborers frequently travel long distances to work, placing them at higher risk of collisions. The vehicles carrying them often lack seat belts.
Florida law requires school buses that transport students to have safety belts if they were purchased after 2000. But the requirement does not apply to buses shuttling farmworkers.
“I think it’s just another example of how farmworkers are left out of protections that many other workers in other industries have,” said Alexis Guild, vice president of strategy at Farmworker Justice, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of laborers.
All seven Olvera workers told the Times the bus didn’t have seat belts. Olvera’s president and vice president did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
In the wake of the deadly collision, advocates have reignited their calls on officials to require that vehicles transporting farmworkers be equipped with seat belts, which for decades have been proven to help protect against serious injury and death.
Jeff Cassell, president of School Bus Safety Co. in Hudson, Ohio, told the Times that he found it “likely that lives may have been saved if three-point seat belts were fitted and worn” during the crash.
Last month, the U.S. Department of Labor issued a rule aimed at boosting protections for migrant workers — including requiring use of seat belts in some employer-provided transportation. Yet the regulation, which will go into effect in June, would exclude many large buses, advocates said.
Florida law requires smaller vehicles — those weighing less than 10,000 pounds — that transport farmworkers to have seat belts. The Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association has been opposed to the new federal requirement, calling it “impractical.”
Police identified the shuttle carrying the Olvera workers as a 2010 International bus. It looked like a white school bus, which on average, Cassell said, weigh roughly 15,000 pounds.
Grueling and delicate work
Each workday, the laborers on the bus traveled from their housing in Gainesville to the field in Dunnellon and back again. They’d been hired by Olvera to harvest watermelons on behalf of Cannon Farms, a local grower, according to workers and job postings.
The vast majority of the 53 laborers, the Mexican Consulate said, had traveled to Florida as part of a visa program known as H-2A. The program allows employers to bring foreign laborers to perform agricultural work in the United States.
Use of the H-2A visa in the Sunshine State has recently skyrocketed, with thousands more temporary workers hired in 2023 compared to the previous year, according to federal data. Florida hires more workers under the H-2A program than any other state in the nation.
The Olvera workers came from areas across Mexico, including Hidalgo, Tabasco, Querétaro and Guanajuato. They knew the wages wouldn’t be lavish, but the money would stretch further than what they could make in the Mexican states they called home. It would allow them to stow away savings for their families.
Gerardo Barrera Martinez, who’s working for Olvera, said he’s come to the U.S. four times as part of the program and now needs to support his 1-month-old daughter.
“It’s not easy to be a father; it’s a responsibility,” the 26-year-old said.
This year, Olvera has been cleared to hire for more than 200 jobs through the program, according to U.S. Department of Labor filings. Forty-four of those positions were at Cannon Farms worksites, where the workers earn $14.77 per hour. Cannon Farms did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Watermelons are not only heavy but fragile, workers said, making the labor at once grueling and delicate. Labor documents show employees selected for the manual harvesting must be able to lift up to 70 pounds to their shoulders. They are exposed to extreme temperatures, the job posting says, and must submit to a criminal background check and random drug testing.
The business, according to the posting, is “very demanding and competitive.”
“Sloppy work,” it read, “cannot and will not be tolerated.”
Four workers say their days have stretched from morning to night. The company provides housing for workers, bunk beds in a Gainesville Days Inn. Often, the workers said, they don’t return until 11 p.m.
Five hours later, they wake and head back to work.
A record on the road
The driver of the truck that crashed into the bus had raised alarms on the road for almost two decades.
Bryan Howard is a self-employed painter and drywall installer who lives with his parents in Dunnellon, court records say.
In 2006, he was found guilty of leaving the scene of a crash. Seven years later, he was convicted on charges of driving with an invalid license.
In 2018, he was caught on the road again without a valid license — twice. He was also found guilty of careless driving and committing a red light violation. That same year, Marion County sheriff’s deputies found him lying in the middle of a road, seemingly under the influence or injured, an incident report says.
The next year, he fled another crash scene, leaving behind damaged property. In 2021, he was arrested after admitting he was again driving without a valid license, an Ocala Police Department affidavit says, though he was not convicted of the offense.
Records show, over the years, he has also been found guilty of grand theft, driving without a seat belt, violating a traffic sign, having an expired driver’s license multiple times and trespassing.
Howard’s parents did not respond to multiple phone calls and emails. The Times contacted other relatives and possible friends of Howard’s but did not receive a response.
In the days before the bus collision, Howard wrapped his mother’s car around a tree, later telling police that an animal had darted into the road. The weekend crash made him sore and hurt his foot.
On Monday night, he later told law enforcement, he smoked marijuana oil with a friend. He took three prescribed medications, which can be used to treat pain, seizures, high blood pressure and panic disorders. He went to bed between 11:30 p.m. and midnight.
In just a few hours, he’d be up again.
A collision without warning
The 53 workers boarded the bus before sunrise. Howard also left around dawn.
The laborers were nearing the Dunnellon watermelon field when Howard climbed into his 2001 gold Ford Ranger and left for an Ocala methadone clinic, court records say. He went daily, he later told police, to treat a minor fracture in his spine.
The workers said their bus driver proceeded cautiously. As Howard made his way along State Road 40, a witness saw his Ranger struggling to stay in its lane near U.S. 41.
Roughly 6 miles down the highway, at around 6:40 a.m., his pickup veered into oncoming traffic without warning.
One worker caught sight of the truck while he ate a burrito. Another, who’d been fading in and out of sleep, grabbed onto the seat in front of him.
They tried to hold on to avoid being thrown as the Ranger smashed into them.
The employees felt heavy blows to their chests. Sharp pain through their eyes, cheekbones and legs.
When police arrived, the bus was lying in a field, off the highway. Debris littered the road and grass. Tire grooves tracked the bus’ path.
Seven workers inside were already dead. Some tried to escape the wreckage but couldn’t. They searched for their closest friends.
One worker wanted to help the others but couldn’t because he was soaked with blood. He escaped through the roof.
Dozens of fire and medical personnel descended on the scene. At least 40 farmworkers were rushed to hospitals in Marion and Alachua counties.
A Florida Highway Patrol trooper found Howard trapped in his truck. He was taken to an AdventHealth hospital in Ocala. Roughly four hours later, police spoke with him outside his room.
Howard said he couldn’t remember how the crash happened. He told police about using marijuana oil and taking his prescriptions the previous night. He said he’d been driving carefully because of his crash days before. He couldn’t explain why he’d been traveling in the wrong lane.
His eyes were bloodshot and watery, according to the police report. His speech slurred. It’s unclear whether he was given any medication at the hospital, but staff bandaged his ear. An officer asked him to do field sobriety tests in his room and in the hallway of the emergency department.
Howard swayed and struggled to maintain balance, court records say, and troopers placed him under arrest.
“We can only wait and pray”
Workers who weren’t rushed to the hospital returned to the Days Inn. They congregated together, waiting for news. They called loved ones to tell them they were safe.
Hours passed.
Gerardo Barrera Martinez anxiously hoped to hear from his friend, who was on the bus. It had been Barrera’s day off. He looked tired and worried.
“I don’t know how he is,” said Barrera. “We can only wait and pray that nothing bad has happened to him.”
Night approached. It was hard to focus on anything else.
“You try to move forward, but the news of the accident has been very hard for everyone,” he said. “We are far from home, you know?”
Cannon Farms announced on their website that the business would be closed the next day, citing a “tragic loss.”
Police identified six of the victims as Evarado Ventura Hernandez, 30; Cristian Salazar Villeda, 24; Alfredo Tovar Sanchez, 20; Isaias Miranda Pascal, 21; Manuel Perez Rios, 46; and Jose Heriberto Fraga Acosta, 27 — the friend of Barrera.
But the identities of two of the dead remained unknown.
All of them were H-2A workers, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced during a news conference. In total, he said, 44 of the people on board had come to Florida through a temporary visa.
As farmworkers were discharged from hospitals, they returned to the hotel. Others transferred to other facilities for further care. As of Friday, at least one remained in critical condition.
Some of the injured wondered about their medical bills and the uncertainty of when harvesting would resume.
“The workers are scared because no one knows what’s going to happen,” said Ramiro Rodríguez, 25, who was off on the day of the crash. “This is tough, but we all want to keep working.”
Survivors of the collision have been reliving scenes from the bus. Revisiting images and sounds. But given the chance, they too would climb on board again.
Times staff writers Marlene Sokol, Justin Garcia, Christopher O’Donnell, Langston Taylor and Tom Tobin contributed to this report.
