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I-4 Pileup Victim's Wife Awaits His Body In Honduras

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By KAREN BRANCH-BRIOSO | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 16, 2008

TAMPA - Six months ago, Adrian Moran Gomez made an excruciating choice.

He said goodbye to his wife and four young children in Honduras. He left them behind to work alongside his father and brothers in Lakeland.

"Back in our country, things are so hard," said Francisco Gomez, one of Adrian's brothers. "He had to work here because he wanted to make a better life for his family."

That plan ended Jan. 9. He and his father and another family member were en route to carpentry work with United Forming. Their red minivan drove into a pre-dawn wall of fog and smoke on Interstate 4 that claimed four lives that day.

On Sunday, Moran Gomez also died from injuries he suffered in the fiery pileup.

Five other family members in a silver minivan at the crash site searched amid smoke and screams and explosions for the red van. They found it. Adrian wasn't there.

"He was the only one missing. They found him in the grass, facedown, choking on his own blood," said William McBride, the family's Orlando-based attorney.

McBride called Moran Gomez's wife in Honduras that day from Lakeland Regional Medical Center's intensive care unit

"I told her he'd been involved in a very serious accident and we were going hour by hour. She began to cry heavily," said McBride, a former minister. "We were able to pray with her."

Now home in Honduras, she waits for her husband's return.

"At this point, they're trying to return Adrian back to his home in Honduras to be buried," McBride said. "They're trying to raise funds to do so at this point. They have no savings."

Reporter Karen Branch-Brioso can be reached at (813) 259-7815 or at kbranch-brioso@tampatrib.com.

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