GoFundMe donations exceed $300K after 2 Canadian girls die in Florida car crash

Two young Canadian girls were killed, and nine people were injured following a multi-vehicle car crash in Florida.

Officials in Clay County, Fla., say Belleville lawyer Pieter Kort, his wife, and four children were injured in a three-vehicle crash around 6 a.m. on Saturday on U.S. 301 at County Road 218.

According to a GoFundMe page set up by a family friend, the family was driving back to Canada after a vacation.

Florida Highway Patrol says a concrete truck rear-ended the van containing the Kort family. The Canadian family’s van then rear-ended an SUV at an intersection.

A 13-year-old girl and a 10-year-old girl in the van were killed, troopers confirmed in a news release. A 16-year-old girl and a 41-year-old woman in the van were critically injured. A 15-year-old boy who was also a passenger of the van and a 43-year-old man driving the van was seriously injured.

“Our family’s lives were changed forever on March 19 when the unimaginable happened,” Lindsay Young writes on GoFundMe.

“While on their way home from a family vacation in Florida, the Kort’s were in a horrific vehicle accident. Jamie and Hannah are in critical care, Ethan and Piet were badly injured, and Maddy and Joni were taken from the earth into the arms of their grandparents’ Nanny and Poppa.”

The GoFundMe has exceeded $300,000 as of Monday.

Pieter Kort, a well-known Belleville lawyer

Young says that “we know the road ahead will be long and fraught with immeasurable grief… love, support, and prayers are appreciated during this time.”

Over 1,600 donations have been made thus far.

According to his website, Kort is currently a partner at Kafka Kort Barristers and president of the Hastings County Law Association.

“He also serves his local community by coaching minor hockey, soccer and ball hockey,” Kort’s website says.

Ed Kafka, a criminal lawyer and Kort’s business associate, acknowledged the fatal crash on social media this weekend.