A 22-year-old woman who died in her car during the Buffalo blizzard stayed in contact with her family on a group chat for eight hours before telling them she would try to get some sleep and take a walk in the morning if she hadn’t been rescued.
Taylor Anndel repeatedly reassured her family that she was stranded in her vehicle after the snow on Friday afternoon, on her way home from work.
The student nurse sent videos to the chat group updating them on the amount of snow outside the building, while her frustration was expressed at the extended hold time for emergency services, and the person who left her on hold.
On Tuesday, Ms. Charlotte, Tomeshia’s sister, shared a heartfelt tribute on TikTok to raise money for bringing her sister’s body back home. Additionally, she also included a GoFundMe link.
‘Please preserve my daughter’s name and bring her back to Charlotte. She will always be remembered,’ Tomeshia captioned the video.
The short video has been viewed 2.9 million times and garnered 25,600 reactions.
‘Trapped in a freaking blizzard.’, Read a message accompanied by a video, which was the initial message she sent in the group chat around 4.15pm on Friday afternoon.
‘I’m extremely frustrated.’… Trudging through the snow, my car’s muffler near the ground, I’ve been driving since 3 o’clock, and I’m still here: she wrote at 6:39 pm.’
The family responded by asking if she ‘got warmth’, while one suggested she ‘simply needs to leave’.
SpongeBob’s relative made a joke that even though the weather was the same, they still urged him to stay safe, but he had pizzas delivered to her.
I said, “She knows how long I’ve been shoveling out and in. They’re sending a cop to me and calling the fire department.”
Two hours later, Taylor checked in with a relative on the chat group again, who responded by saying that she was unfortunately still stranded and likely would spend the night.
‘I’m furious buddy, my door is almost completely covered [sic].’ She had central heating, she informed them, adding: ‘It appears that I’ll be spending the night here. I’m uncertain about the duration of this gas supply.’
It was at that point that her family started to get anxious, questioning whether the authorities had actually been ‘on their way for two hours’.
‘Can nobody reach you?’ Her sister inquired.
At that point, she had been waiting on the line to authorities for 22 minutes, but encountered an obstacle on her journey. Ms Taylor was informed that the police had made an effort to save her.
Her sister exclaimed, “Ill-equipped in a region recognized for it!”
At 8.59pm, she notified her siblings that she was still on the call and was expecting to be connected to the fire department.
‘Considering her situation, she thought she would be alone if she left by 11pm. She wrote at 9.09pm that someone had mentioned they might all go out.’
I swing it open every now and then, but the wind stops when it gets too hard and mad.
I am going for a walk in the snow in the morning, and if I stay in the car, I will run in them… I know how to go about the night now, so I’m talking to them, man, don’t give a damn. They read: which message she sent at 9.37 PM.
She woke up when her family contacted her and told her to go to sleep. She wrote at 11.56pm, ‘I walk when I wake up.’
She later sent another photo demonstrating that the snow had ‘reached up to my waist’. This photo marked the end of her communication.
At 9am the following day, concerned family members once again started messaging in the group conversation, urging Anndel to respond.
She hadn’t responded to any of their messages, even though they had attempted to call her multiple times. They asked her several times if she was okay.
At 10.30am, they had not received any information yet, and worried family members started making pleas on social networking platforms.
By utilizing the “track my iPhone” feature, her sister was able to verify that she had not departed from her vehicle.
Her corpse was discovered at 9pm on Christmas Eve, however, she was not extracted from her vehicle until 7pm on Christmas Day.
Emergency teams are currently conducting search operations for bodies in the heavy snow, as the aftermath is compared to a battlefield. The significant ‘blizzard of the century’ has resulted in the death of a minimum of 65 individuals.
‘I hope law enforcement had informed her about the emissions when she made the call,’ one individual remarked after watching the video.
‘Shattered my actual existence witnessing this… This is devastating.’
I want to thank you for sharing your story. I never knew that leaving snow covered on a car could save so many people, even those you don’t know. Thank you.
Wanda Brown Steele, the mother of Ms. Taylor, disclosed to DailyMail.Com that a stranger passing by happened to be the individual who ultimately carried her daughter’s lifeless body, according to a coroner.
Following the tragic discovery of her deceased daughter in the vehicle, she expressed her frustration with the absence of coroners in the second most populous city of New York.
‘My kids and I are furious,’ a devastated Brown Steele, 53, stated, expressing her anger over officials’ management of the situation.
‘She spent an extended period of time in the car. From Friday until Christmas.’
Prepared for the snowy weather, the woman had ventured out on the roads in a truck. The police received the woman’s call and eventually reached the location.
The police took their time to arrive. Steele Brown mentioned that the woman was able to contact her family and other members, and they heard about it after searching on social media.
Bearing a resemblance to ‘an iceberg’, the mother mentioned that Ms. Taylor’s physique, which the lady shifted the camera towards, provided a certain degree of resolution for the mother. She informed her about her daughter’s destiny and informed Brown Steele of her identity, ultimately establishing a connection through Facetime.
Her mother stated that her cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning, as opposed to hypothermia.
Ms Taylor returned to New York earlier this year to look after her father, who was originally from Buffalo but grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina.
A fundraising plea for the funeral of Ms. Taylor has raised $30,000 and is continuing to increase.