Mom went missing after bingo: Crash involving cop revealed by stranger's call

A 92-year-old woman, returning home from her regular bingo night in Orlando, was hit by a police car that ran a red light earlier this month.

On the following day, January 19, Milagros Ortiz passed away at Orlando Regional Medical Center. 

Now, her three children are insisting on accountability from the officer who was driving and named "at fault" in an initial crash report.

"He needs to understand that due to his carelessness, recklessness, and negligence, he took someone who still had perhaps four or five years of life left," says her daughter Judy Santiago, 64.

According to her family, Ortiz was anything but an ordinary 92-year-old.

"She was energetic," says her other daughter Evelyn Alicea, 71. "She was the heart of the gathering."

She enjoyed music, dancing, and doing puzzles, activities her children say kept her mentally sharp. "She would manage her finances, adding and subtracting without a calculator," Alicea notes.

Ortiz would meet every Saturday night with a group of 40 to 50 friends — who she lovingly called "la familia binguera," or her bingo family — for dinner and bingo.

"She loved attending, and it didn't matter if she wasn’t feeling her best," says Alicea, who shared a home with Ortiz. "Because that’s what inspired her, lifted her spirits, and kept her going."

The siblings realised the depth of the connections and how much their mother meant to the group after this tragic event. "They were all supportive," Alicea notes. "They were deeply saddened by what happened to our mom."

Ortiz was on her way home from a bingo evening early on Sunday, Jan. 18, in a Jeep Patriot driven by her neighbour. 

While they were headed south on S. Semoran Blvd., the Jeep was hit by a marked police car at 1:48am local time, as per the initial crash report from the Orlando Police Department.

A witness, whose car was stopped at a red light next to the police vehicle, stated that the light "was taking a while to change," and the police car's emergency lights were on before passing through the intersection. 

However, the report indicated the emergency lights were switched off when the vehicle crossed.

The police car then collided with the Jeep Ortiz was in, which had the green light.

"Video footage of the crash confirmed" the witness' account, the report stated, adding the police car "was responsible for the accident due to not yielding the right of way."

The driver of the police vehicle is identified in the report as Andrew McKuhen, 28.