The woman killed Thursday when a train slammed into barriers at New Jersey's Hoboken Terminal recently moved to the state to start a new life with her husband and young daughter, her mother told the New York Post.
Fibiola Bittar de Kroon, 34, left her hometown of Santos, Brazil, for New Jersey last year to follow her husband when his job relocated him to New York, the Post reported. She dropped her 1-year-old daughter off at daycare just before Thursday's crash.
"You just saw a smile on her face every time she came to pick up her daughter, and that's what I keep seeing," daycare director Maria Sharp told The Associated Press.
A former co-worker, who worked alongside de Kroon at a company that specialized in travel to Brazil, told the wire service that she was left speechless by de Kroon's death.
"(I) feel like the world stopped for some moments," Marques said. "I had the privilege to get to know and work with Fabiola for some years, and I can say she was a great, talented" woman with a "big and genuine heart."
De Kroon's husband, Daan, was on a business trip in Pennsylvania at the time of the crash. Daycare director Carlos Magner told WNBC that he asked for employees' help to figure out how to tell his daughter that her mother was gone.
"'What should I say, how should I address this?'" he asked, according to an emotional Magner. "And I said, 'You're not born knowing how to address this. Just stay strong, be there for your daughter.'"
Family members told Brazilian media that they're focused on bringing de Kroon's body back to the country.
"We are in shock," de Kroon's mother, Sueli Bittar, told G1.
>> Related: Deadly New Jersey train crash: What we know
De Kroon died when debris struck her Thursday after a train crashed through to an interior wall during the busy rush hour traffic at Hoboken Terminal. The station, located across the Hudson River from New York City, is among the New York metropolitan area's major transportation hubs.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Thursday at a news conferences that de Kroon was standing on a platform when the crash happened around 8:45 a.m. Nearly 110 people were injured.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating.
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