‘No work, no nothing’: Mourning continues, search resumes 4 days after tow truck crash
Though the news seems all but certain to be tragic, family members and friends hoping for closure gathered Saturday morning on both sides of the Pioneer Bridge along the Sacramento River, where a tow truck plunged into the water after a collision with a big rig Tuesday night.
Family, friends, acquaintances and passersby started gathering just after 10 a.m. on the Mill Street Pier in West Sacramento to watch the search and to continue mourning the presumed loss of Shalvinesh and Roselyn Sharma, a married couple that owns Justin’s Towing and who have have been missing since the time of Tuesday’s accident, several of them said.
Recovery efforts – searching for the tow truck and the remains of its occupants – officially continued Saturday morning following days of hiatus. After the initial rescue operation was called off Tuesday night, California Highway Patrol and the Sacramento Drowning Accident Rescue Team in a statement Wednesday said search efforts could not resume until the river’s current slowed.
Crews among five boats – with the Coast Guard, Solano County Sheriff’s Office, Solano County Office of Emergency Services, Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office and the Sacramento Fire Department – patrolled, surveyed and sent dive teams into the water underneath and immediately surrounding the bridge Saturday.
By about noon, the search seemed to be focusing on a location near the bridge’s pillars on the Sacramento side, where dive teams submerged in search of a vehicle that authorities have said may be 30 feet underwater, based on sonar readings by DART.
Solano County OES brought a tugboat and had taken the lead on the day’s search effort, but the dive crew was still looking for the tow truck as of 1 p.m., one member said.
At the end of the West Sacramento pier, a collection of about 50 candles, a handful of flowers and a soccer ball had been laid over the course of impromptu vigils and remembrances for the Sharmas in the days since the tragedy. Friends and family members say the couple had been on their way to respond to a call when the tow truck vaulted over a guard rail after being hit by a big rig.
Satish Sharma, who is not related to Shalvinesh and Roselyn but whose sons were close college friends with them, said the couple left behind two children of their own.
Satish Sharma said the group mourning on the pier is one example of how tightknit the local Hindu community is.
“Hinduism is one of the oldest religions in this world, and this kind of bonding, like in this search – all of the families are in mourning,” he said. “Basically everything is shut down. No work, no nothing. We just wait for ... well, we all anticipate what the end result is.”
More than 30 people were on the pier at one point. Some watched the boats for hours. As the search action began to gravitate toward the opposite side of the river, spectators began passing around a set of binoculars to get a better view of the dive team.
Over in Sacramento near a boat launch, immediate relatives of the Sharmas were gathered, including Roseyln’s brother Donald Singh. They sat, stood and paced near emergency responders with the multi-agency operation, physically closer to the search activity but with most of their view obscured by the bridge itself. Those family members declined to talk to media as of 1 p.m., when Singh said they still knew little about the search’s results.
In the meantime, some of the Sharmas’ loved ones, as well as members of the local tow truck industry, grew frustrated about how long the process has taken.
Though the Sacramento River was running about 6 knots Wednesday, which CHP and DART said in their statement is about double the speed considered safe for a dive crew, a few people said more should have been done sooner to locate the tow truck and the victims.
“I think West Sac and Sacramento search and rescue, and all of this, they have to (be) better equipped to come into this situation,” Satish Sharma said. “And it took them how many days to get that team from Solano County to help out today?”
Dayna Devencenzi, who owns A Mama’s Towing in Sacramento, told The Bee on Wednesday: “They’re taking their god---- sweet time out there,” and added that incidents like this can prove “scary” and “nerve-wracking” for other tow truck drivers.
“We just pray to the almighty just to help the family and get over what we are going through,” Satish Sharma said.
This story was originally published March 30, 2019 at 3:25 PM.
