I heard about this story through my parents, because they have known this family since they immigrated to the U.S. Although I personally didn’t know any of the family members, I still feel horrible about what happened and its hitting me at a really deep level. I won’t really elaborate, because the news story says it all.
4 from Carmel die in icy accident (by Scott Thien) December 16, 2007
Icy road conditions led to at least four deaths Saturday as a winter storm hammered Central Indiana.
A Carmel mother and her three children died after the family’s van slid off the road Saturday night and crashed into a retaining pond in Hamilton County, trapping them in the submerged vehicle.
Rescue divers removed driver Batul Abbas, 47, Westfield, and her three daughters from a pond near 141st Street. The four victims were taken to Methodist Hospital in critical condition late Saturday, where they later died.
Abbas, 1585 Charity Chase Dr., Westfield, was driving the van carrying Shazreh Abbas, 18; Shaail Abbas, 14, a student at Carmel High School; and Azmeh Abbas, 8, a student at College Wood Elementary in Carmel.
Batul and Shaail died around 3 a.m. today, and the other two daughters’ deaths were announced just before noon.
The coroners’ reports showed Batul and Shaail’s deaths were related to complications from hypothermia.
Abbas Khan, a distant cousin in Karachi, Pakistan, who grew up with the mother, said Abbas was delivering food to a friend in the area who recently suffered a death in the family.
Khan said his cousin wouldn’t have risked traveling in bad weather unless she thought it was important.
“She was always that sort of person … she was always helpful toward her friends and family,” Khan said off Abbas, who grew up in Pakistan and lived in Houston, Texas, before moving to Indianapolis in the 1990s.
The girls’ father, Hadi Abbas, was out of town on business and stuck in Ontario, Canada, because of the weather, said Saleem Haidery, a cousin calling from a Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.
“He knew they were in a car wreck” but didn’t know their exact condition, Haidery said today by phone.
Hadi, he said, grew up in Karachi, Pakistan, and studied engineering in Houston, where he got bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
“He’s a nice guy, a very nice guy,” Haidery added.
According to Carmel Police, Batul Abbas was traveling east on 141st Street near the Lincolnshire subdivision about 9:30 p.m. Saturday when she lost control of the vehicle and slid down an embankment and into a pond on the northwest corner of 141st Street and Towne Road.
Abbas apparently called 911 from the accident scene. The vehicle was completely submerged when officials arrived.
Fire departments from Fishers, Indianapolis, Zionsville and Westfield were among those who responded to the scene, as well as dive teams from Fishers and Indianapolis. The Hamilton County Sheriffs Department also responded.
Neighbors in the Abbas’ neighborhood expressed shock at the overnight developments.
“They were just a wonderful group of people, … loving and kind and very giving,” neighbor Angela Moreman said of the family this afternoon. “(Batul) was a very classy lady, a beautiful person inside and out.”
Moreman added that Batul was taking college classes in the area and was known for planning graduation parties and weddings. The Abbas girls were described as studious and outgoing.
Another neighbor, Gayle Fedele, said her daughters were friends with the Abbas children, some of whom babysat for others in the tight-knit Carmel neighborhood.
“It’ll have an effect on all the kids in the neighborhood,” she said.
Only thing I want to add is I’ve noticed that this version of the story was pulled from their website (I’m not sure the reason) and I had to use Google’s cache feature to pull it up, because this was the first article I read on it.
I hope their souls rest in peace.
