4-month-old baby dies 2 days after crash on Eastex Freeway

Monday, June 7, 2021
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Two sweet angels -- sisters -- barely starting to create a bond. Sadly, a tragic accident Wednesday tore a young family apart.

Dayan Aranzola said there's no way other way to put it, the family is broken.
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He said his nieces' mother was driving north on Highway 59 at Laura Koppe Road at about 9:20 a.m.

The girls were in the car, he said, fully fastened in their car seats.

"She saw a pallet on the road and tried to avoid it," he said in Spanish.

The pallet of metal debris was blocking a moving lane of traffic. According to police, the debris was part of a lost load from a previous crash about 10 minutes earlier.



Police said that as the 23-year-old mother tried to drive around it, her car was struck by a green Ford Taurus and both vehicles spun on the highway.
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Daileny Rodriguez Rivero, age 3, was pronounced dead at Texas Children's Hospital on Wednesday. Her baby sister Liah, just 4 months old, was taken off life support Friday afternoon.

The 78-year-old driver of the Taurus was transported to an area hospital with a broken leg, cuts and bruises.

Neither driver was found to be intoxicated, police say.

"It is all a horrible, unimaginable accident," he said.


He said his 3-year-old niece was a happy girl, and 4-month-old Liah was barely beginning her life. Right now the parents have no words.
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Dayan says to all the Houston families, please be careful on the road, pay extra attention and hold your family close always.

Family set up a GoFundMe account to help them with this unexpected tragedy.



At this time, officers have not found the tractor-trailer truck or driver involved in the lost load incident.

No one has been charged, but the investigation is ongoing.

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