Loved ones say 28-year-old Karina Ramirez was around the corner from home when a pickup truck traveling in the wrong direction hit her vehicle.
SAN ANTONIO — A San Antonio woman is dead, and two young girls are recovering after a wrong-way driver slammed head-on into their car just blocks from home.
The crash happened around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday in the 3800 block of Harry Wurzbach Road, near Eisenhauer Road. Loved ones say 28-year-old Karina Ramirez had just left the store a second time after forgetting something. She was around the corner from home when a pickup truck traveling in the wrong direction hit her vehicle.
Inside the car with her were two young girls: 9-year-old Skylar Wolford and 7-year-old Aliyah Frautschi. Though not her biological children, Karina had considered them like her own.
“She was the best stepmom my grandbabies could ever have,” said Eashonne Wolford, the girls’ grandmother and Karina’s boyfriend’s mother. “A good God mama, a good auntie, a good daughter, a good sister. That was Karina.”
Wolford says the girls vividly remember the terrifying crash.
“She told me, ‘Granny, Karina screamed so loud and then we all started screaming. We saw bright lights coming, then it seemed like the lights were spinning around. She said, ‘Get out girls! Get out!'” said Wolford.
The girls said two women rushed to the car, smashing windows to rescue them as fuel leaked from the wreckage.
“They were yelling, ‘It’s gas leaking! We’ve got to get them out!’,” the girls told Wolford. “They started looking around saying, ‘Where’s Karina? Where’s Karina?'”
Moments later, the girls say Karina took a final breath and slumped over.
Ramirez had been with her boyfriend, Sedrick Wolford, since she was 17. She was known to loved ones as someone joyful and nurturing.
“She was just happy, like a butterfly that lands in your hand,” Eashonne said.
Wolford has already lost children to gun violence. Now, she’s mourning Karina and calling for change.
“When are we going to stop? When’s this going to stop?” she asked. “You keep giving drunk drivers a slap on the wrist. What if those girls had died too?”
San Antonio police say the 45-year-old driver of the pickup truck was taken to the hospital with minor injuries. He may face intoxication manslaughter charges, pending toxicology results.
One of the girls remains hospitalized, but is expected to recover.