Heartbroken Parents Find Daughter’s Bucket List After Tragic Car Crash

Heartbroken Parents Find Daughter’s Bucket List After Tragic Car Crash
(Left) 5-year-old Jace and his 9-year-old sister Brooklyn Newville and (right) Brooklyn's bucket-list found after they both perished in a car crash. (L: Facebook | Annie Nellessen, R: Facebook | Shaneé Irie Newville)
1/6/2019
Updated:
1/8/2019

A couple in Oklahoma were having a hard time getting over the loss of their two young children after a fatal car crash. Months later, the discovery of a bucket list helped ease a little of their pain.

In March 2017, a couple in Wellston tragically lost three of their closest family members—their two young children and the children’s grandmother—in a car crash.

The children, 9-year-old Brooklyn and 5-year-old Jace Newville, were killed on the spot, while 50-year-old Linda Irie died at the hospital. The only survivor was Irie’s 6-year-old niece.

It was a trying period for the couple, Brian Newville and his wife, after learning of their loss.

“We’ve had to move a couple times, can’t really walk into the house and see where the kids used to be, where we used to go, ya know,” Brian told News 4.
When Brian learned that a 17-year-old boy who hit their car might have been texting while driving, he wondered if there was anything he could have done to prevent the accident.

“It’s not worth someone’s life, and the pain and suffering that we’ve had to go through because you want to be on your phone for two seconds,” Brian recalled. “How, why, what could have caused this, what could we have done to change it?”

Months later, Brian happened to discover a bucket list that Brooklyn had written.

“We found my daughter’s bucket list,” Brian said. “I actually had heard about it, but I had never seen it until the other day.”

The list includes going to Honolulu, jumping off a cliff into a swimming hole, and seeing the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

“Go scuba diving, see a moose,” Brian said. “She always wanted to go hunting with me, never got a chance too. We were trying to find a spot on my dad’s land to do that.”

After the bucket list surfaced, Brian and his wife decided to try fulfilling Brooklyn’s wish on their own, while raising awareness on the danger of using a phone when driving.

“We are putting out our campaign of ‘Put it Down’ so people will put their phones down,” Brian said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s your phone, food or anything in the car while you’re driving, put it down.”

While drunk driving kills, using a cell phone can also take away innocent lives. We should always remember never to be distracted by our phones or any other things while on the road.

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Jocelyn Neo writes about China-related topics and stories on life that inspire hope and humanity.
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