“I saw a black hole. Then I blacked out. I woke up to find my mom leaned over towards me. She was choking on her blood and she couldn’t breathe or anything,” 16-year-old Emily Williams of Wiggins, Mississippi, told WLOX-TV in a video call from her hospital room.
Williams was able to keep Amanda Williams, her mother of 39, standing upright and stopped her from choking. She said she could still hear the chaos outside of her family’s truck, however.
Emily Williams said that she heard a car approaching and then heard a crash. She also heard the engine of a car moving because it was above us. It didn’t move us much but I then heard the tires of another car screeching. It crashed into the ground, and I heard people screaming.”
Two people were killed and nine were injured late Monday when seven vehicles plunged, one after another, into a deep hole where a section of the two-lane Mississippi Highway 26 collapsed outside Lucedale. Initial reports by the Mississippi Highway Patrol claimed that 10 people were hurt, but they later published a list with nine names.
Amanda Williams remains in hospital.
Layla Jamison, a senior at George County High in Lucedale was in the car that landed onto the Williams’ truck. Shanna Bordelon said that Jamison’s car did not impact the cab in which Emily and Amanda were sitting.
Emily Williams stated that waiting in the collapse zone to receive help was frightening.
She said, “In all honesty I was ready for the end.” “I was like, We are not going to make this out of here. We won’t be found. Everyone is going to continue adding.
Emily’s father arrived and she told him that she was certain she would be saved when she heard his screams from the sky. She is currently recovering from injuries such as a torn colon and broken legs. She said, “I feel so fortunate.”
Mississippi Highway Patrol Cpl. Cal Robertson stated that some vehicles crashed on top of one another as they collided into the abyss. This was an area without street lights. According to the National Weather Service, Ida poured as much as 13 inches (33.3 centimeters), of rain through Mississippi.
