A heartbroken New York father who tracked down his two teenage daughters using a tracking app and discovered them dead in a car crash has described the tragedy as “unbelievable”.
“I don’t know what the future holds. Everything’s just not right anymore,” Brian Trumbull told Fox News Digital.
Haley Trumbull, 19, and her sister, Shelby Trumbull, 17, were driving a Chevrolet Cobalt in Cayuga County on Aug. 1 when the car went over a hill, crossed into the oncoming lane and crashed into another vehicle.
The father became concerned when his daughters didn’t respond to several text messages after going to an amusement park in Rochester with friends.
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Sisters Shelby and Haley Trumbull were killed in a car accident on August 1 in New York when their car collided with an oncoming vehicle. (GoFundMe)
He used the Find My Friends app to pinpoint their location and discovered they were on Ferris Road in nearby Cato.
He then sent Shelby another message: “Where are you?” he wrote.
“Nobody knew what to say. It was the worst thing that could have happened to us. Words cannot describe what this loss is like.”
He told his girlfriend that the children were somewhere on Ferris Street, a statement that shocked her deeply.
“And she said, ‘Oh my goodness, I heard something happened on Ferris Street,'” he told Fox News Digital.
The father immediately went to the scene and was stopped by police officers standing at the road closure.
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Sisters Shelby and Haley Trumbull died in a car accident in New York state on August 1. (Courtesy of Brian Trumbull)
The officer told him that two girls had been involved in an accident, one of whom had died, but he did not know their identities.
“A police officer pulled me over. He didn’t want me to be on the road. I sat on the bumper of the car and couldn’t get up,” Trumbull said. “I was just in shock.”
He told officers he was too distraught to drive home, so one of the officers drove him home.
The family was later informed that both Shelby and Haley had died.
“Nobody knew what to say. It was the worst thing that could have happened to us. Words can’t explain what this loss is like,” he said.
A local firefighter told the shocked parent that he was with Hailey at the scene of the accident, holding her arm as her life was slipping away.
Shelby and Haley Trumbull died in a car accident in New York on August 1st. (Courtesy of Brian Trumbull)
The Cayuga County Sheriff’s Office confirmed in a press release that the girls were on their way home around 6 p.m. when their vehicle veered into oncoming traffic and struck a Jeep Cherokee. The driver sustained serious injuries but is in stable condition.
“I think they were going down a road they’d never been on before, they didn’t know where they were going and they went over the hill too fast,” Trumbull speculated.
He said the two sisters plan to be cremated together.
“There’s some comfort in knowing they’re not alone,” he explained, “I mean, I wish this hadn’t happened, but at least they’ll be together.”
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Haley graduated from high school last year and was planning to start working at a local daycare center, and her sister recently started working on a local farm.
Ms Trumbull called them “simple country girls at heart” and said the loss has devastated the family.
“They touched a lot of people’s hearts,” their father said. “Everyone who met them loved them. They were very sweet and kind and really smart. Very smart.”
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The sisters are survived by their parents, a 21-year-old brother and two step-sisters.
“Obviously it’s very difficult but we’ve been looking back at photos and reminiscing,” the grieving father said. “We can all sit and laugh and reminisce about the good times. One thing I can say is there were no unresolved issues. I just wish I could have spent more time with them.”
