At her disco-themed 80th birthday party over the weekend, generations of her family and friends came together to honor a much-loved grandmother.
But it ended in horror when a family SUV traveling through South Florida went off a two-lane country road and into a canal in a remote part of western Palm Beach County. Nine people, six of them children, were killed.
Family and friends of Patricia Edwards came from all over the country to celebrate her on Saturday. She wore tie-dye bell bottoms and peace sign jewelry to celebrate her eighth decade, according to social media posts.
Pamela Wiggins, her daughter, wrote on Facebook, “Just wanted to say thank you to all my family who came to Florida for my mom’s 80th birthday party.”
Just after midnight on Monday, Wiggins wrote, “My mom had a great time. I’ll post pictures later.” “Love all of you.”
Wiggins, who is 56 years old, never got to show all those pictures and stories to anyone. After less than eight hours, she was pronounced dead when police found that the 2023 Ford Explorer she was driving had gone off a rural part of Hatton Highway near Belle Glade and flipped over into a ditch next to the road. Nine members of her family were inside.
There were four deaths at the scene and five deaths at the hospital. The other people who died were named Leiana Alyse Hall (30), Anyia Monique Lee Tucker (21), Michael Anthony Hall Jr. (14), Imani Andre Ajani Hall (8), Kamdien Edwards (5), Yasire Smith (5), Ziaire Mack (3), and Naleia Tucker (1). The 26-year-old Jorden Rickey Hall was found and was said to be in very bad shape.
The National Transportation Safety Board, a federal body that looks into certain car accidents, heard about the crash. At a news conference, board member Alvin Brown said that inspectors got to Belle Glade on Tuesday and will be working with Palm Beach County deputies for the next week. In about a month, the first report should be ready.
Brown said, “We look into crashes that are catastrophic and that we can learn from.” “We have the best investigators in the country; they’re the bar.” The reason we’re here is because we think this crash was a terrible, terrible event.
It’s the latest tragedy linked to South Florida’s huge system of man-made canals and rivers. These were built to drain the huge grassy wetlands of the Everglades and Lake Okeechobee.
The state’s Department of Health and the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles both said they don’t keep a record of deaths that happen in canal accidents.
But a 2001 report from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel found that over five years in the late 1990s, almost 100 people died when their cars crashed into ditches or bodies of water in Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach Counties.
According to the police, Wiggins lost control of her car as she was driving west on a two-lane road in a remote part of the county where sugarcane fields seem to go on forever and farming canals run along the highways.
The crash report says that Wiggins failed to make a left turn as the road turned to the south. This caused the car to crash into a guardrail and then flip over in the canal below.
Between this part of the county and the white sands of Palm Beach, which are about 40 miles (65 kilometers) away, it seems like a different world. There are acres of sugarcane instead of palm trees in this area.
“That area of the landscape is mostly rural and agricultural.” “To be honest, it’s not that different from most rural agricultural areas in the rest of the country,” said Eric Dumbaugh, who runs a center for road safety at Florida Atlantic University in Palm Beach County.
Dumbaugh said that accidents on rural routes like this one tend to happen in a certain way. He said that drivers are in a state of “highway hypnosis” when they’re driving slowly down a flat, straight, and often dark road until they are caught off guard by a turn. “All of a sudden there’s a sharp turn,” he said. “That area doesn’t have a lot of shoulders, so if you go off the road, you hit whatever is on the side of it.” That looks like a tree, right? It might be a ditch. or, more often than not in Palm Beach County, a canal.
The accident is still affecting the people who knew and loved the victims. Just days ago, they were enjoying a big family event.
Dawn Wiggins-Ely, a family friend, wrote on Facebook, “I keep saying it’s a nightmare.” “Lord, we need you.”
