Above, emergency personnel transport Alice Glass from her wrecked vehicle while, below, other personnel help Ghulam Jiwani from his smashed vehicle. Glass later died from her injuries from the wreck. (Banner Staff Photos by Don Treul) Marisol Vertiz was driving north on U.S. Highway 69 toward Tyler. She was about three miles south of Bullard when she saw a northbound vehicle next to her cross into the southbound lanes and strike the vehicle head-on.

“He went over and hit them and I was right next to him,” she said.

The violent wreck she saw in front of her resulted in the death of a Jacksonville women.

According to Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper Steven Crosby, the driver of the northbound 2007 Lincoln Navigator, Ghulam Jiwani, 23, of Tyler, crossed into southbound traffic and struck a 2008 Ford Sport Trac pickup head-on at about 12:03 p.m. Monday, Aug. 2. The Lincoln spun around and struck a 2010 Nissan before coming to rest in the shoulder of the road facing the highway on the west side of the southbound lanes.

The Ford pickup continued south and stopped in the borrow ditch west of the southbound lanes. The driver, Alice Glass, 80, of Jacksonville was trapped in the vehicle. Emergency personnel from the Bullard Volunteer Fire Department and the Flint-Gresham Volunteer Fire Department feverously worked to free Glass from the vehicle with extrication tools. Eventually, the top was partially removed so that emergency medical service personnel could care for her injuries. She was transported from the scene by an East Texas Medical Center air ambulance to ETMC in Tyler. Crosby said she died at 4:56 p.m. Monday, the day of the crash.

A passenger in the Ford pickup, Ernest Glass, 91, also was injured. He also was transported from the scene by an ETMC ambulance to Trinity Mother Frances in Jacksonville.

Kerri Jones, 46, of Rusk, the driver of the Nissan, a rental, was visibly shaken and received minor injuries.

Firefighters removed Jiwani from the Lincoln using extrication tools. He walked out of the vehicle with some support from emergency personnel, but was also transported from the scene to Trinity Mother Frances in Jacksonville where he was treated and released.

Vertiz, who was driving a 1998 Ford Taurus, was uninjured, as was a passenger, her sister, Angelina Guinn. Her vehicle did not receive any damage. The Lincoln Navigator and the Ford pickup received extensive damage, and the Nissan received heavy damage.

“It was crazy because it was right in front of me,” Vertiz said

The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office also assisted at the scene.

Crosby said there was no evidence of drugs or alcohol in the Lincoln, and that Jiwani said he had been driving from Houston and dozed off. Jiwani will be charged with criminally negligent homicide, a state jail felony, according to Crosby. The crime is punishable by up to two years in a state jail and a maximum $10,000 fine.