SAN ANTONIO – A man and two children were killed and two others were injured late Sunday night in a head-on crash in West Bexar County.
Bexar County sheriff's deputies responded to the crash around 11 p.m. in the 13400 block of Potranco Road outside Loop 1604.
The male victim was identified Wednesday afternoon as Tony Allen Rogers Sr., 38.
Sheriff's deputies said a silver sedan headed west on Potranco Road crossed over the double yellow traffic line and crashed head-on into a silver pickup truck headed east.
Rogers and the boys, ages 11 and 7, were pronounced dead at the scene and the two injured people were taken to an area hospital with unknown injuries, sheriff's deputies said.
"The neighbors here, we've become the first responders," said David Sanchez, who said wrecks are too common on Potranco, to which his home backs up.
He said he rushed to help the crash victims when he heard the impact.
"I first came up on the truck, and I (saw) a lady in the driver's seat, and she was slumped over," Sanchez said.
He said once that he saw that the woman's and the boy's injuries didn't seem too severe, another neighbor, Darrell Freeman, checked on the people in the other car. Freeman said he found a man and boy who weren't doing well and thought everyone was accounted for.
"(I) ran back this way, and that's when the other ... that's when we noticed the other little boy (lying) face down there," Freeman said.
The car in which the boys and Rogers were riding had been cut in two.
Sanchez said all he could do was pray for the victims.
"I hope that it's comforting for them to know that the last thing they heard was a man praying for them," he said.
Freeman said it was hard to process what he'd seen.
"It's hard to see," Freeman said. "As your mind started to put it back together, you started realizing how bad this was. That's when it started kind of hitting home."
He went back to the scene Monday morning, and while he was there, he said a woman whom he'd pulled from her car after a wreck nearly two years ago stopped to thank him -- a reminder of how many wrecks have happened in the area.
Neighbors believe that visibility, speed and unfamiliarity with the curves in the road because of new growth in the area could be contributing to the accidents.
The names and ages of the other victims have not been released. Bexar County sheriff's deputies said the cause of the crash is under investigation.
Potranco Road was closed for several hours before it reopened around 5 a.m. Monday.