Gabriella Faiz’s car had been stalling all day Thursday. After a trip to a mechanic that evening, the 17-year-old called her mother, Al-Quiyamah Faiz, who was driving behind her.
“Go around me, Mommy,” the Douglasville teen told her.
The car soon stalled again on I-285 westbound. Two cars slammed into her and, within minutes, the car was engulfed in flames. Gabriella and her 2-year-old daughter, Jada, burned to death.
“I watched my daughter and granddaughter burn in the middle of the night,” an emotional Al-Quiyamah Faiz said in a phone interview Friday.
The accident snarled traffic on I-285 and Ga. 400 northbound through the night. One other person was injured in the crash, according to Channel 2 Action News.
Police are now investigating whether to press charges against the other cars involved in the fiery wreck.
In the phone interview, Al-Quiyamah Faiz described a chaotic scene in which police tried to pull the victims from the car while she struggled to force her way back to the crash site through bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Her daughter’s life was cut too short, Al-Quiyamah Faiz said. She wanted to become a doctor, own her own restaurant or nightclub.
“She was spontaneous, wild, stubborn, opinionated, beautiful, direct,” she said.
“(Gabriella) had great expectations and aspirations for her daughter’s life,” Al-Quiyamah Faiz said.
Jada, known in the family as “fat thing,” was just a week away from her second birthday. She had just begun talking, and had developed a taste for sweets.
“God makes no mistake,” Al-Quiyamah Faiz said in an interview with Channel 2 Action News. “Regardless of what you think you can do, it’s already written.”
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