Last Wednesday, a 36-year-old mom was driving down Loop 202 in Mesa, Arizona, with her two children, a 9-year-old son and an 11-year-old daughter, in the car with her.
In a press conference, Bart Graves, a spokesperson for the Arizona Department of Public Safety, stated that this mom was driving a pickup truck when she crashed into the back of a flatbed tow truck that had pulled onto the shoulder of the road with “emergency flashers on.”
Bart indicated that this mom hit that tow truck with “a significant rate of speed,” and the impact instantly killed both of her children while also taking the right side of the pickup truck she was driving right off.
“They didn’t have a chance, and it’s very sad,” Bart said. The mom later on said to investigators that she was “distracted” when she crashed “by what was going on” in the car.
Bart went on to detail that he thought the kids were roughhousing in the backseat of the car or had some kind of scuffle that momentarily took their mom’s attention off the road.
The children who passed away in the crash were later identified as Evie and Tate, according to this GoFundMe page organized by Roxie Heussner.
“Tate and Evie, age[s] 9 and 11, were tragically killed on the 202 freeway in Arizona today, October 23, 2024, in a car accident,” Roxie wrote on the GoFundMe page.
“Their parents and siblings are now not only having to face life without two of their children, but a mound of medical and funeral bills just years after one of their children went through a long course of cancer treatment.”
Ty Porter, Tate and Evie’s dad, shared a heartbreaking tribute to the two children on Facebook last Friday, October 25th, explaining that being a dad to them “has been the best part of my existence.”
“I will miss you so dearly. My heart breaks that I cannot wake up to your smiles,” Ty wrote in the post. “That I can’t hear that amazing laugh. That we can’t play catch together.”
“That I can’t cheer you on and coach you from the sidelines any longer. That we can’t have our talks in my truck or answering you many questions about life.”
“Our drives up to Heber to unplug and make memories. I will miss that I no longer get tuck you in at night and tell you how proud you make me. I will miss giving you daddy snuggles.”
