A tight-knit community of refugees from Bhutan is reeling from a van crash that claimed the lives of two men and injured another 13 people as they traveled from Atlanta to their jobs at a chicken plant in Perry.
Some of the injured remained in critical condition in a Macon hospital Tuesday, according to people who know them. And some of the victims were parents whose children were left with no breadwinner.
"They don't have anybody to work at their house," said Raghab Kafley, who knows some of the families. He said they are struggling financially and that he wants to help them. "I don't have a clue how I am going to," he added.
The crash occurred around 9 p.m. on March 22 in Monroe County. The Chevrolet 3500 van they were riding in went off the road, hit a guardrail and overturned, according to the website of the The Herald-Gazette newspaper in Barnesville. The crash blocked traffic on southbound I-75 for nearly three hours.
Two men, both from Decatur, died: Tula R. Chamlagai, 44, and Kharka B. Chhetri, 49.
Some of the injured had been released from hospital care and had returned home by Tuesday, but others remained hospitalized and in critical condition, said Kafley, who volunteers at a Nepalese temple in Clarkston where many of the victims worshiped. He said the temple, the Hindu Buddhist Spiritual Center on East Ponce de Leon Avenue, is trying to raise money for the victims' families.
The van passengers were on their regular nightly commute to a Perdue chicken-processing plant two hours south of Atlanta. They had been making the trek five times a week, Kafley said.
Two of the victims were African nationals and the rest were refugees from Bhutan. They knew each other because they'd been brought to DeKalb County by the same resettlement agency, the Refugee Resettlement and Immigration Services of Atlanta, Kafley said.
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