Commercial Auto Dealers

At a heartbreaking funeral service in Wisconsin, five Cadillac hearses awaited five family members killed in a car accident last week.

The Rivas family, along with 1,500 friends, family members and mourners, said goodbye to four children and their father. Joel Rivas was the father of Nancy Rivas (age 19), Eliana Rivas (age 17), Karen Rivas (age 15) and Nicandro Rivas (age 12). Nancy Rivas, the mother, was the surviving member.

The scene was a touching one. The church was filled and there were people even standing in the back and along the aisles to offer their support. Others watched the service on closed-circuit television in another area of the church because there simply wasn’t enough room in the sanctuary. Many family members and friends wore white T-shirts with pictures of the beloved children and their father. People attended from across the country, including some family members all the way from California.

After the service, the five caskets were loaded into five Cadillac hearses which transported them to the Allouez Catholic Cemetery for internment.

The driver of the car that caused the accident was arrested on suspicion of DUI. However, the Marinette County District Attorney said it was “too soon to conclude that [he] was at fault or intoxicated.”

It’s really sad to see three young kids being loaded into the back of three Cadillac hearses because a driver didn’t have enough common sense to give up his keys after drinking too much. Unfortunately for the Serrano family, this is a grim reality.

Nearly 700 people gathered at Leisure City’s St. Martin de Porres Catholic Church in Florida to say goodbye to three special children – Hector, Amber and Esmeralda Serrano. Just days before the funeral, the three kids were in a Ford Windstar with their father. A drunk driver behind the wheel of an SUV plowed into the back of the minivan at a high speed. Tests later showed that Gabriel Delrisco, the drunk driver, had a blood alcohol level that was almost three times the state’s legal limit. The father was the only one in the minivan that survived.

The community has pulled together to help the Serrano family pay for the funeral expenses. A local radio station – Power 96 – raised more than $50,000 for the family and Miami-Dade firefighters also have a campaign to help.

Watching kids take their final ride in a hearse is one of the most heartbreaking things to see. Let’s all be more careful on the roads and use some common sense so we don’t have to see this happen anymore.