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