Family, friends mourn woman killed in wrong-way crash in Fort Worth
FORT WORTH — We're learning more about two of the people who were in that wrong-way crash on Loop 820 on Sunday that killed five people.
Evan Ranallo and Chelsea Cook were driving home on Loop 820 early Sunday morning. Ranallo plays the guitar and his band had performed just hours before. They were almost home when tragedy struck.
"They were about a mile from their exit and they were hit head-on, the car was going the wrong direction," said Laurel Summerfield, Chelsea Cook's mother.
Fort Worth Police say a wrong-way driver in a Ford Focus hit Ranallo and Cook's pickup truck head-on. Ranallo survived but has had multiple surgeries and is still hospitalized at JPS Hospital in Fort Worth. Cook died at the scene. Summerfield has stayed by her daughter's fiance's side as he recovers from his surgeries.
"It just feels unfair, very unfair," said Summerfield. "She was such a huge light, anybody who knows her will tell you. She was just the biggest personality, total extrovert, she had been a theater kid. She just had so much left to do."
The couple was just starting their life together. Ranallo proposed to Cook in New Mexico just weeks before the crash.
"Even before they were engaged, she was like a sister to us she was such a light in our family and she gave us so much joy and fun," said Rachel Ranallo, Evan's sister. "It was hard and I'm more heartbroken for Evan because that was the love of his life."
Ranallo and Cook's friends and family are coming together to support each other through this tragedy.
"You know, a promise our family has made to Chelsea is that we will not curl up in a ball and give up and let this ruin us," said Summerfield.
The families are also grappling with the reality that they may never know why that driver went the wrong way down Loop 820. A family of four including two children was also killed in the crash.
"We made a bunch of assumptions like everyone else that these people had been drunk or they had been really young and we were really shocked to find that it was a family including two minors. That certainly made the whole thing worse, in a sense," said Summerfield.
Fort Worth Police are still working to determine what caused the driver to enter the highway going the wrong direction.
The families now hope their tragedy serves as a reminder to other drivers.
"Be careful, make the right decisions, think about what you can do. [It] can affect not just your family, but a lot of other families," said Summerfield.
Evan's band "So Long Good Night" will hold a benefit concert where all of the proceeds will go to Ranallo and Cook's families. The concert is set for December 14 in Hurst.