Shoi Delfin-Caballes and her children were on a typical day. Shoi pulled into a Shell gas station in Palm Harbor to fill up her SUV. Despite the rising price of gasoline, Shoi has been able to maintain her family fed during the deadly epidemic. As Shoi was filling her SUV’s gas tank, a sixty-six-year-old woman backed into it, knocking it over and trapping Shoi in a dangerous scenario.
Shoi was attempting to drive out of the parking lot when she collided with another vehicle, which caused minor damage. Shoi couldn’t get out since gas was gushing from the nozzle. Shoi’s 15-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son ran out of the car to try to save their mother, but there was nothing they could do. The gasoline erupted into a fireball that consumed Shoi, and the searing heat became so intense that neither her son nor daughter were able to pull her away.
Shoi’s children attempted to use a fire extinguisher to douse the flames, but they were out of control. A panhandler named Jared Pierson dashed across the street and assisted with his friend in pulling Shoi’s kids away from the flames before the station exploded.
The children’s mother was killed in the fire, and Mr. Peirson was unaware of it. It wasn’t until he’d gotten them to safety near his begging station that they told him what had happened.
“Apparently, she was pinned against the gas tank – the gas pump – and her vehicle,” Pierson said. “By the time I was crossing the street, it was all a giant fireball. All I could do was pull the kids away, and we all had to go across the way. Because I thought the gas station was gonna go up in flames.”
The deaths of a mother and her four children in Florida has prompted investigations by state police. The driver, according to troopers, backed her Nissan into the gas pump. While she was filling up her SUV with gasoline, the spilled liquid “erupted in flames,” according to authorities. Troopers are now trying to figure out what happened.
SGT. Steve Gaskins said that the two children were in the SUV when the fire broke out. When Pierson, a Good Samaritan, ran over and pulled the youngsters away from the blazing inferno, they tried to save their mother but were unsuccessful.
“The kids wouldn’t leave my side and my buddy’s side, so we let them sit with our bum gear, and that’s when we found out their mom was trapped in the car,” he said. “I didn’t see the mother in the car. It was all in flames when I got up to it.”
If he had known their mother was imprisoned, he would have done something, Pierson claims.
“I’m just relieved that the babies didn’t get hurt, and if I would’ve known – you always say the what-ifs and all that, you know,” he said. “I just wish I would have known earlier where the mom was. If I would have known the mom was pinned there, something would have been different. I couldn’t find the mom. That’s what really hurts.”
