Visitation Held For Crash Victim Killed In Front Of Daughter
Posted September 3, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
During a tragic weekend on roads from the GTA to cottage country that claimed more than a dozen people, Jackie Duvall Avelar was one of the unlucky ones.
On Monday visitation was held for the mother, whose life was claimed as her daughter watched helplessly from the side of the road.
Avelar was with her three-year-old daughter, Bela, on the 401 near Cambridge Friday when their car was hit by a truck. She got out and took her daughter to the side of the road before going back to the car, apparently to get her cell phone. When she did so she was hit again, and died instantly.
“It’s very overwhelming as to how many people she touched that are here to give us their sympathies,” said Ligia Do Vale, Avelar’s sister, at Monday’s visitation.
“If she would have stayed by her daughter at the side and if the adrenaline didn’t’ kick in for her to go back to her car she could’ve still been alive.”
But friends and family of the young mother are especially sorry for Bela, who remains traumatized from watching her mother’s demise just a few feet away.
“It must be horrific,” said Avelar’s friend, Jose Lima. “God help her.”
A funeral for Avelar’s will be held Tuesday morning.
For more on this tragic story, click on the video link.
