GOODYEAR, AZ — Dozens of lives changed on February 25, 2023. A driver plowed into a group of 20 cyclists on the Cotton Lane bridge in Goodyear, killing two people and injuring many others.
More than a year after that crash, ABC15 obtained video of the driver on that day moments after the collision.
“Babe, I’m scared, babe. I hit a lot of people, babe,” driver Pedro Quintana-Lujan said in the 25-second video, showing himself. For several seconds in the video, he turns the camera around to show the scene on the bridge where you can see multiple people and bicycles lying on the roadway. “Babe, I killed somebody, babe.”
In the rest of the video, the camera faces Quintana-Lujan as he’s heard crying.
Watch clips of the video obtained by ABC15 in the player above.
Goodyear Police told us they obtained that video through a search warrant, which ABC15 obtained through a public records request.
In the National Transportation Safety Board investigation, records show he called two people right after the crash. The report says he called his father on his cell phone and then his wife over Snapchat. The records show 911 was not one of his first calls if it was at all; it did not detail that. The NTSB report said there were four 911 audio records obtained from Goodyear Police, which three of them were victims and one was a bystander.
Clay Wells, who survived the crash, but was the most severely injured and the last to leave a medical facility, told ABC15 he had not seen the video but knew of it.
ABC15 asked Wells if he felt the system failed him as they await Quintana-Lujan to appear in court for the first time.
“I feel like the County Attorney’s office failed us,” Wells said. “If you read the NTSB report, I don’t understand how there is any way possible you could not argue, at least to a presiding judge, to go forward that you couldn’t prove recklessness, especially those video links… of him getting on his phone, Snapchatting.”
In November, Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell told the victims she would not pursue felony charges, saying there was not enough evidence. Quintana-Lujan had been released from jail days after the crash from lack of evidence, the attorney’s office said then.
“[The evidence] just wasn't there. It's heartbreaking and it's unsatisfactory but it is where we are at right now,” she said to ABC15 in November after she told victims she wouldn’t file felony charges. “It's a collision where we cannot show with the evidence that there was a conscious disregard of a risk that this individual made.”
The NTSB report, which was released in February of 2024, detailed that Quintana-Lujan drank alcohol and smoked marijuana the night before the crash. MCAO said he did have a small amount of THC in his system but pointed out that Arizona law doesn't set a standard for proving impairment by THC only.
On the day of the crash, Quintana-Lujan told police his steering locked, but the NTSB report said two separate investigators checked his truck and found no issues.
The case was sent back to the Goodyear Prosecutor’s Office where 11 misdemeanor charges were filed in March. If found guilty, he could face a minimum fine of $1,000 and a maximum could include up to six months in jail, years of probation and more fines.
ABC15 tried calling Quintana-Lujan, but the line was disconnected. He was also not home when ABC15 went to talk but was asked to give a card to the person at the house. There were no answers or calls returned from any of his potential attorneys.
Wells told ABC15 he specifically has not heard from Quintana-Lujan or his attorney, nor has he seen him.
“I’ve asked myself that,” Wells responded to a question about how he’d feel when he saw Quintana-Lujan again. “It’s probably going to be a mixture of emotions. Sadness. I mean, he’s the father of small children. Anger for what he’s done, and hopefully some form of justice.”
Quintana-Lujan is scheduled to be in court on Wednesday, June 26, but it’s possible the date could change again.
