BUCKEYE, AZ – Police say a pregnant 18-year-old who was injured in a fiery crash in Buckeye Sunday night has died.
The crash also left two other people dead. The woman has been identified as Mercedes Cabrales of Buckeye. Police say she was about five months pregnant at the time of the accident. The baby did not survive. The identities of the two others who died in the crash have not yet been released.
The family said that Cabrales and her boyfriend, Joshua Franco, weren’t on the right path until Cabrales got pregnant. Then, they said they turned their lives around to give their baby a good upbringing. “I wanted to do the best for my kid,” said Franco.
The crash happened around 10:30 p.m. near Verrado Way and Van Buren Street. Buckeye police say when officers got to the scene, they found one car engulfed in flames. Cabrales was in a second car, and was trapped in the vehicle. A man was behind the wheel of a third vehicle had rolled several times, landing in a nearby field. Officers were able to free Cabrales from her car. She was rushed to the hospital, but later died. The driver of the third car that had flipped was also taken to a hospital with injuries not considered life-threatening.
“It was my first grandson I was going to have, I was so excited,” said Cabrales’ mother, Veronica Sanchez. She was looking forward to a gender reveal party; now she’s planning a funeral. Sanchez and her husband found out the gender of the baby from nurses at the hospital, who gave them a small box. “When she opened it, there was a little heart, blue, with little handprints and footprints,” said Joey Sanchez, Cabrales’ step-father.
The child’s father wishes he could have told Cabrales more than the last phone call he had with her on the night of the crash. “I wish I could have had my little family because I was really excited. She was my everything; I lost my soulmate now,” said Franco. Now, he will live on the way Cabrales wanted him to, even though he doesn’t have a child on the way. “I know she’s going to be by my side when I do it,” said Franco.
If you would like to help Cabrales’ family with funeral expenses, click here.
We extend our condolences to Mercedes Cabrales’s family and friends at this time of great loss for them.
Source: 3TV/CBS 5