Two Palm Beach County deputies are dead and another is in critical condition after a car accident near Loxahatchee Thursday morning.
Authorities say Corporal Luis Paez, Deputy Sheriff Ralph Waller and Deputy Ignacio Diaz were conducting traffic control when one of the officer’s motorcycles broke down. They moved off the side of the road and waited for assistance when a female driver overcompensated, killing Paez and Waller.
Sheriff Ric Bradshaw says Diaz is in the intensive care unit at St. Mary’s Medical Center.
“I’m sure that these deputies not in their wildest dreams thought that this was gonna happen to them today,” he said. “When a deputy dies, a piece of the community dies with them. It’s tough.”
A motorcade of SUVs took the deputies’ bodies from the medical center to the Palm Beach County Medical Examiner’s Office. All three deputies served in the county’s motor unit for over a decade.
