A New York father is sharing the heartbreaking story of how he discovered his two teenage daughters had tragically died after using an app to track their location.
Haley Trumbull, 19, and Shelby Trumbull, 17, visited Seabreeze Amusement Park in Rochester, New York on August 1.
“I can’t believe it. I still can’t accept it.”
Before the teens left the house, their father gave them $100 to go to an amusement park, told them he loved them and told them to “have fun and behave.” People Magazine.
“Obviously, they’re adults. They didn’t need to be told to behave, but I tell them that all the time,” Brian Trumbull, 45, said of his conversation with his daughters earlier that morning.
Trumbull never expected it would be their last face-to-face conversation.
After spending the day at an amusement park with Ms. Trumbull’s girlfriend, the sisters returned to her house and headed out again later that afternoon.
After not receiving a response to her text messages, Trumbull used the Find My Friends app to track down her daughters, finding that they had not moved from a spot on a country road in the nearby town of Cate, about three miles away.
As Trumbull approached the scene, a police officer blocking the road stopped him and told him there had been a terrible car accident in which a young girl had died.
“I was sitting on the bumper and couldn’t get up,” Trumbull said, recalling the heartbreaking moment.
Josh Lovejoy, one of the firefighters at the scene of the fatal car crash, told Trumbull he was with Haley until the end.
The distraught father soon learned that Shelby had also died from injuries sustained in a fatal car accident.
of Cayuga County Sheriff’s Office The girls were traveling eastbound in a 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt when “the vehicle went over a hill, crossed into oncoming traffic and struck a second vehicle,” police said in a press release.
The Cobalt struck a 2016 Jeep Cherokee driven by a 59-year-old woman, who was taken to a hospital in stable condition with serious injuries, police said.
Trumbull believes her daughters were unfamiliar with the road, which she described as “hilly” and winding.
Since their daughters’ tragic deaths, the family has been “trying to cope and support each other,” Trumbull said.
“I can’t believe it. I still can’t accept it,” he added.
Trumbull said she found peace in knowing that Haley and Shelby will be cremated and buried “so that they can always be together.”
So too was telling the world about his daughters, both of whom, he said, were “simple country girls” at heart.
“I want people to know their story,” he said. “They were kind and beautiful and just lovely people.”
“They touched a lot of people,” Trumbull continued. “Everyone who met them loved them. They were just figuring out what they wanted to do.”
a GoFundMe A campaign has been launched to help the family cover funeral expenses, and at the time of writing, more than $46,000 has been raised.
Funeral services for Haley and Shelby will be held on August 10 at Traub Funeral Home in New York City’s Central Square.
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