Five-year-old Emilio Martinez was killed in the crash, and his father has chosen to forgive the uncle who was driving, family said.
FORT WORTH, Texas — A Fort Worth grandmother is speaking publicly for the first time about the crash involving a train that killed her five-year-old grandson, Emilio Martinez, and the family pain that followed.
In an interview with WFAA, Maria Escamilla said Emilio and his father lived with her.
The boy, a student at Fort Worth ISD’s Worth Heights Elementary School, spent most afternoons playing in the courtyard of their apartment complex, the same place she sat on Friday as she described the moment her other son, Fabian Riojas, called her from the crash scene.
“Fabian told me, ‘Mom, I made a mistake. I am so sorry,’” Escamilla said in Spanish. “I heard him say, ‘God, please forgive me.’”
Riojas, the boy’s 24-year-old uncle, picked him up from school that day, Escamilla said. She usually picks her grandson up, but asked Fabian for help on Wednesday due to her work obligations.
According to Fort Worth PD, Riojas, the driver, drove around barriers as the passenger train approached. Police said cross-arms were down and warning signals for the oncoming train were functioning properly, but Riojas drove around them.
Riojas’s vehicle was struck by a Trinity Railway Express train. The boy died at the scene.
Escamilla says Riojas called her from the scene and told her he believed Emilio was gone before first responders arrived.
“He said, ‘Mom, I ask you to forgive me, but I think Emilio is dead,’” she said.
She said she does not excuse what happened, but believes her son must live with the consequences of that moment.
Riojas was taken to the hospital with minor injuries and is currently in the Tarrant County jail.
“I am not justifying what he did, but it was a mistake,” Escamilla said. “It is a mistake we will all have to live with for the rest of our lives. Especially him.”
Escamilla said she feared the crash would divide her children, but Emilio’s father, her other son, chose forgiveness.
“He said, ‘I forgive him,’ because he knows Fabian will live with this tragedy for the rest of his life,” Escamilla said.
The loss, she said, is overwhelming.
“It is an immense emptiness,” Escamilla said. “It hurts because I will not see him ever again.”
Escamilla described Emilio as having a spark, a light.
“He was unique in our family,” she said.
Fort Worth police have charged Fabian with manslaughter for what police said was a preventable traffic collision.
The family says the impact of this tragedy will stay with them for a lifetime.
Escamilla asks for compassion and prayers for her family during this time. Her faith, she said, is what’s getting her through the tragedy.