An 18-year-old girl was live-streaming herself on Facebook Live as she drove along a Pennsylvania highway in the moments before a fiery crash that killed her and a passenger.
State police say Brooke Miranda Hughes was broadcasting live video on Facebook while driving very slowly in the right lane of Interstate 380 near Tobyhanna shortly after midnight on Tuesday.
The passenger, 19-year-old Chaniya Morrison-Toomey, can be heard asking, ‘Are you going live?’
Before Hughes has a chance to reply, lights flash inside the car, followed by the sound of screeching tires, reported The Times-Tribune.
Both teens died after a tractor-trailer plowed into the back of their Suzuki Forenza, according to the station WFMZ. State Police said Hughes was driving with a spare tire doughnut.
Witnesses told State Police there may have been something wrong with the Suzuki’s tail lights, according to WNEP.
The impact sent the sedan flying into the guardrail before it came to rest in the right lane of the road and burst into flames, burning its occupants beyond recognition. Both women were pronounced dead at the scene after being extracted from the charred, mangled vehicle.
The coroner who performed the autopsies on the teens had to rely on DNA to confirm the identifications.
The driver of the truck, Michael Jay Parks, was unhurt. As of Thursday afternoon, he has not been charged with any crime in connection to the deadly collision.
The video capturing Hughes and Morrison-Toomey’s final moments has been removed from the 18-year-old’s Facebook page, where someone had posted it after the crash. State police say they plan to use the footage in their investigation.
Samantha Piasecki, 17, who was friends with both victims, said she had been in the car with them earlier that evening but asked Hughes to drop her off at her mother’s home in Scranton a few hours before the crash.
Piasecki said she feels thankful but cannot help but wonder whether she could have done something to prevent the tragedy had she been in the car with her friends.
She said when she watched Hughes’ Facebook Live video that night, it ‘broke’ her.
Hughes was a student at West Scranton High School and worked at a Long John Silver’s eatery.
Morrison-Toomey worked at a local KFC restaurant, where fellow employees remembered her as a hard worker who was valued for her punctuality and sense of humor.
Source: Daily Mail UK
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