The families with Connecticut ties who lost their loved ones in a crash in Florida last week are speaking out.
On August 5, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said a 2023 Ford Explorer went off the road and ended up upside down in a canal around 7:30 p.m. on Hatton Highway, northeast of Belle Glade.
Among the ten people inside the SUV, nine were killed, six of them were children aged 1 to 14-years-old. The victims include 57-year-old Pamela Wiggins, who was the driver, 30-year-old Leiana Alyse Hall, 21-year-old Anyia Monique Lee Tucker, 14-year-old Michael Anthony Hall Jr., 8-year-old Imani Andre Ajani Hall, 5 year olds Kamdien Edwards and Yasire Smith, 3-year-old Ziaire Mack, and 1-year-old Naleia Tucker.
The lone survivor, Jorden Hall, 26, was recently released from the hospital.
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“I told him he’s my hero. He is,” said Anntianette Edwards, of Bridgeport. “He did everything he could do with his bare hands.”
Edwards, who lost her only son in the crash, said the group was on their way to the airport to head home from their trip. They were set to fly into New Haven, but never made it. The airport confirmed they’d never boarded the flight.
The driver, Wiggins, was like a grandmother to her son, Edwards said.
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“Pamela, she had four adopted grandchildren. My mother passed when I was 6 months, so she took up the torch to be his grandmother,” Edwards said. “He loved her, he really loved her.”
She said they were all a ‘clique’ who did everything together. She said they were having the time of their lives on the trip.
“We all lost,” she said. “They’re living their best life up there now. We just have to see them at a later date.”
Her son was looking forward to starting kindergarten in the fall.
“He was very happy, adventurous -- a daredevil,” she said. “As soon as school ended, he was like, ‘we going back to school next week?’”
Ian Hall and Michael Hall Sr., brothers, lost their sister and both of their sons, Michael “MJ” and Imani.
“When I got the news, I ask, ‘where’s my son?’ I heard that he’s also dead. I was so, so, so upset,” said Hall Sr. “I was waiting to hear them say it’s just a joke, you know, cause I can’t believe I really lost my son.”
He said his son was quiet and showed his love through his actions. He was visiting the United States for the first time after just getting his visa, and they were planning to head back home to Jamaica in a few days.
“To know that, my son, we both came to the states and to know that it’s just me alone going to go back. It’s going to be so hard. To know that when I look beside, I’m not going to see him on the plane.”
Ian drove up from his home in New Jersey when he learned the news about his son.
“Talking about him, thinking about him, it breaks me down so whenever time I reach that stage, I just start remembering the fun things we do together,” Ian said.
He said his son Imani loved his cousin MJ. The two will be flown back to Jamaica after the funeral to be buried together.
“He was so excited when MJ was coming [on the trip]. He wanted to do everything with MJ. That’s why we’re going to bury them together,” he said.
He hopes his family’s pain will cause others to appreciate their loved ones more.
“I wish I spent more time with him, my nephew, my cousin, my sister,” he said. “At the snap of a finger all your loved ones can be gone.”
The NTSB has joined the investigation into the crash.
