Eighteen-year-old Karla Chavez' mother doesn't know how she will go on without her daughter.
"I wanted for her to bury me, not for me to bury her first because she was barely starting to live. At a young age, she still had a lot to live for,” Araceli Valdovinos, her mother, said.
Chavez was one of four people killed in a Palm City crash near Chula Vista early Sunday morning, when a Acura collided with a Honda Odyssey.
The Acura sped through a red light at Main Street and Industrial Boulevard approximately 2 a.m., slamming into the Odyssey, San Diego Police (SDPD) said. The impact of the collision propelled it into a pole, ripping the car in half.
All four people inside the Acura died, and a fifth suffered severe injuries. All six people inside the Odyssey are alive; however, two suffered severe injuries. The mother of 20-year-old survivor Ismael Franco said he has spinal cord injury. She said he will have surgery Monday that will determine if he ever walks again.
Daisy Garcia, cousin of 12-year-old victim Cristian Melchor, said she was shocked when she received the news of her cousin's death.
"I feel really bad. I don't know how to explain it...I just talked to him on Saturday and then the next day they just told me he had an accident. And I don't know...I just feel really bad," she said.
Melchor was sitting in the back seat of the Acura when it crashed. The car was coming back from a party, a party Melchor had invited Garcia to earlier in the day.
"He said, 'Okay, see you tonight or see you tomorrow,' and I told him 'Okay, be careful,'" Garcia said. "And he told me, 'Okay, don't worry, I'm going to be fine.' And that's the last time I talked to him."
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The driver, 24-year-old Cesar Ortiz, was expecting a child with his significant other.
“She's devastated at this point. There are no words that can explain how she feels. She's very hurt,” family friend Misael Almazan explained of the mother of Ortiz’s unborn child.
Ruben Ortega says he was like an Uncle to Karla's best friend 17-year-old Karina Guererro, who also died in the crash. "Way too young, everybody is still in shock," Ortega said of the victims. "I will always remember her laugh, she had this loud laugh. It was from her gut. She loved to laugh."
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Sunday evening, family, friends and loved ones held a vigil for the four killed in the crash, lighting candles and leaving notes of remembrance for those who lost their lives.
