Patterson Cemetery District, Stanislaus County, CA 

Submitted by Gale Stroud and Burta Herger 26 Aug 2007

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit 
or presentation by other organizations. Persons or organizations 
desiring to use this material for non-commercial purposes, MUST obtain 
the written consent of the contributor, OR the legal representative of 
the submitter.


Hernandez Martha 870903 p1
Woman Drowns in Canal; A 22 year old woman drowned in four feet of water Tuesday when the pickup truck she was
driving went into a canal on Prune Avenue. Firemen and paramedics pulled the woman from the cab and performed CPR,
but she was pronounced dead at the scene a few minutes later. Wayne Mize, a county road maintenance worker, believed
the woman had been in the water for about 10 minutes "at the most."  "She d been back and forth around here all day."
said Mize who labored  with fellow road workers Tuesday rebuilding a section of Prune Avenue, east of Elm Avenue.
The dead woman, Martha Hernandez, was driving a white Chevrolet pickup on the north side of the canal. Traffic,
including a school van that passed the death scene, was using the canal lane because of the road building work.
Mize was driving a water truck when at 4 p.m. a man he thought was a ditch tender called to him and said it looked like a
vehicle had gone into the canal. The pickup was resting upside down in the canal. Road workers tried in vain to open the
cab door under water and then used a road grader and cable to pull the truck up on one side. "We saw the woman s body
inside and waited for the ambulance," Mize said. The road worker said he saw the woman driving in the area most of the
day, and believed she was a farm worker. A woman from the camp of dwellings at the end of Prune Avenue drove up the
road and identified Hernandez's body. Hernandez, who listed a Marshall Road address, reportedly had three children.
She moved here six years ago from her native Mexico. A rosary is scheduled for 6 p.m. today, Thursday, at Hillview
Funeral Chapel. Burial will be in Zamora, Jalisco, Mexico. Survivors include her husband. Antonio Hernandez; a son,
Hector and two daughters, Soledad and Nancy Hernandez, all of Patterson; four sisters, Carmen, Guadalupe, Theresa and
Dellia Serwin, all of Mexico; and four brothers, Fernando Serwin of Crows Landing and Carlos, Manuel and Eduardo
Serwin, all of Mexico.