A 22-year-old lady was found dead in her vehicle just hours after sending harrowing footage of the blizzard to her relatives.
After becoming stranded while driving home from work in Buffalo on Friday afternoon, Anndel Taylor became one of at least 28 fatalities in what Governor Kathy Hochul dubbed “the snowstorm of the century.”
She sent a series of videos to her sisters in North Carolina, the latest one showing her pulling down her ice-covered window soon after midnight to reveal a nearby van with its emergency lights on.
Tomeshia Brown, one of Taylor’s sisters, told WSOC-TV, “She was telling my sister that she was afraid.”
According to her family, she was believed to have been stuck in her vehicle for approximately 18 hours before being discovered on Christmas Eve.
“She had dialed 911 and was awaiting their arrival,” her mother, Wanda Brown Steele, told the television station.
But “everyone who attempted to reach her got trapped,” Brown said.
“Fire department, police, everyone got trapped,” she claimed, questioning why the “snow-famous state” did not have emergency vehicles that could work during the monstrous blizzard.
During the storm, Brown posted a message stating that “the whole of Buffalo” was searching for Taylor, who had returned to Buffalo from Charlotte only a year ago to assist her ailing father.
Taylor warned her sisters in a group chat that she would attempt to walk to safety if help had not arrived by the time she awoke, according to her mother.
According to WSOC-TV, the mother urgently alerted family in Buffalo, where Taylor was born, to “get back out there again.”
“That’s when they broke the window and saw her inside,” the distraught mother claimed.
Taylor’s mother feels carbon monoxide poisoning likely caused her daughter’s death.
“The car was running, and snow continued to fall, so the exhaust pipe was blocked,” she explained. Then, as the automobile stopped, she began to freeze.
Brown stated that it occurred shortly before Taylor’s 23rd birthday and when she “still had Christmas presents under the tree.”
The family is attempting to return her body to Charlotte, where they relocated when Taylor was two years old. An online fundraising effort has raised roughly $10,000 of its $12,000 goal thus far.
Her mother stated, “We’re attempting to get her here because I want her to be with me.”
Taylor’s grandma, Sylvia Taylor, stated on WSOC-TV, “It’s so simple to ask, ‘Why God? Why?’ However, it is not always intended for us to know the solution.”
In a series of heartfelt online tributes, Brown referred to her sister as “the golden kid… The sibling with the most wit, honesty, and street cred!”
She replied, “I’m so very so sorry, I would have done anything to have been there with you.”
»Buffalo storm victim, 22, sent horrifying video before being found dead«