A nurse and mom of three has tragically died while on her way to work. She was driving when a tree fell across her car and crushed her to death. The tragic incident happened in Philadelphia on October 30.
44-year-old nurse practitioner Maria Camela Lazo-Hannecart had been driving to work. She worked at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center. But a tree fell across her car and crushed her. According to 6ABC, the incident happened near Philadelphia's West School House Lane. After the freak accident, police had the grim duty of informing the husband of the nurse
"He goes, 'Well, I have something to tell you that's going to harm you,' " her husband said. "Then he told me this tragedy, this awful story about the tree that fell on the car ... I couldn't believe it."
Nurse Dies In Philadelphia
The family remembered the nurse as a loving mother. Born in the Philippines, she moved to America when she was just a child. But she never forgot her international roots. As a nurse, she worked with Doctors Without Borders, assisting in an Ebola outbreak in Africa. During her work, she met her husband.
"She grabbed my hand on the back and she held it ever since — until last Wednesday," he said.
Married in 2015, the couple shared three kids, the youngest being three. It was heartbreaking for her husband to tell their children about her death.
"I put them next to each other. I told them, 'What I'm going to tell you is going to change your life forever," he said. "They all cried at the same time, and we all hugged each other."
On a GoFundMe, the family wrote, "Ella was a devoted wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend whose compassion and warmth touched everyone she met. Her joyful spirit and love for life were contagious. She fulfilled her dream of serving others through medicine, earning her Masters of Nursing Practice from Jefferson University, but her greatest pride was being "Mom" to Ethan, Noemie, and Tristan, and a loving partner to Pierre."
The husband of the nurse also discussed her legacy.
"Say the truth. Be compassionate and honest," he said. "This is what I would say because this is who she was, and this is how she has to be remembered."
