A newlywed and four other women have died in a limousine fire in Northern California. Nine women were in a limo with a male limo driver when it caught on fire on the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge on Saturday.
ABC News reported that four people escaped the fire and investigators are trying to find out how the fire started.
The bride was identified as 31-year-old Neriza Foja who was a registered nurse that was recently married in the U.S. and planning a second ceremony in the Philippines next month. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the limo was on the way to the Crowne Plaza Hotel for her bridal shower where her husband was waiting.
The driver in the incident wasn't hurt and he said to investigators that he was driving over the bridge when one of the women complained about smoke inside the car, reported The Associated Press. By the time the driver pulled the car over the back of the limo was in flames and four passengers escaped while one escaped through the partition behind the driver.
Orville Brown, the driver, said to The San Francisco Chronicle that he initially misunderstood what one of the passengers was saying and thought she was asking if she could smoke. A few seconds later she knocked again and screamed "Smoke, smoke!" and "Pull over."
The driver, Orville Brown, said at first he misunderstood what one of the passengers in the back was saying when she complained about smelling smoke.
He helped four women escape through the partition and one woman ran around to the passenger door to the back of the limo but it was then engulfed in flames.
"When she opened that back door, I knew it wasn't a good scene," Brown said to The San Francisco Chronicle. "I figured with all that fire that they were gone, man. There were just so many flames. Within maybe 90 seconds, the car was fully engulfed."
ABC News reported that police are not sure how the fire started and that it appeared that the flames spread so fast that the remaining women who were sitting in the back of the limo had no time to escape the blaze.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
