DAYTON — Family members and friends gathered Friday night to remember the victims of the Christmas Day crash that killed four family members, including two children, and critically injured four other children.
>> PHOTOS: Family, friends gather for vigil for victims of Christmas Day crash
The vigil began at 6 p.m. at the site of the crash on West Third Street near Brooklyn Avenue in Dayton.
For the first time, family members shared a photo of the four victims, the driver Renee Jones-Blevins, 49; Quanishia M.D. Jones, 28; Tae'Kwaun Jones, 10; and Mae'lah Jones, 5.
They were among eight family members in a Dodge Avenger around 11 a.m. Wednesday on West Third Street that slammed into a tree, split in two and burst into flames.
Various mementos, balloons, teddy bears and candles are now at the spot where four people lost their lives and four other family members, ranging in age from 1 to 12, were critically injured.
They prayed and sang at the vigil to honor four lives lost in one crash.
“There’s no explanation to it,” family member Michael Jones said.
He lost his mother, the driver.
“She was our rock, our solid rock,” he said.
Jones lost his sister, too.
“I still feel like … it’s not real,” he said.
The crash, which split the car in two, happened around 11 a.m. Wednesday. Friends and family want to know why it happened.
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A witness on Wednesday said seconds before the wreck, the driver “kept zig-zagging.”
Jones has a theory about what happened before the crash.
"My mama had a medical condition … and as I look at it I have a feeling she had a seizure behind the wheel that caused the crash,” he said.
That’s something the family expects a coroner’s report will ultimately determine.
But whatever led up to the crash, the tragic outcome was four lives lost, and four children in the hospital.
The grief was clear at Friday nights gathering.
“We lost half our family on Christmas Day, on the day that everybody wants to wake up happy to,” Jones said.
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“It's a tragedy. Not only did we lose one family member, not two but four at the same time,” family member Tara Jones said. “And we have four fighting for their lives and they’re kids.”
Tara Jones said she is a cousin, and that she sees a long road ahead for her family.
“It’s not ever going to be easier, it’s not going to be better. You can’t let nobody tell you it’s going to be OK. You just got to work with it,” she said.
The family also said they were grateful to the passerby who stopped and helped some of the children out of the car as it burned. They haven’t met him, but said, “He’s forever blessed in God’s eyes.”