A Florida wife-to-be was on the phone with her fiancé when she heard the harrowing crash that claimed his life.
Amanda Ulicky, 31, and her partner Brandon ‘Neal’ Estep had long been planning their future together, but in an instant their blissful dreams were shattered when the 31-year-old’s car was hit in a fatal crash.
The father-of-one was out helping a friend in nearby Daytona – 148 miles from the deadly collision – in the early morning hours of March 2, before he ran out of gas.
The grief-stricken wife said her fiancé had been pushing his SUV to a gas station, after breaking down around 5:30 that morning.
Ulicky says she was on the phone with Estep when she heard the impact of the smash.
‘I heard screaming going on. I heard sirens,’ she recalled to ABC-affiliate, WCJB. ‘It was a lot of commotion. I heard the phone drop. It was just a traumatic thing for me to hear.’
Florida Highway Patrol says another driver collided with Estep’s vehicle, sending both cars spread across the highly-trafficked State Road 100 in Columbia County.
One car ended up on its side, while the other wound up in the opposite lane, according to News4Jax.
Ulicky says after she heard the mortifying incident, she raced to scene.
She said she spent hours at the crash site until she was told he had died.
‘I felt like my heart was ripped out of my chest. I almost fell to my knees,’ Ulicky said through tears. ‘I was in tears. Like all the wind was sucked out of me.
‘I was the last one to say “I love you” to him on the phone. He took his last breath while I was on the phone with him,’ she added.
The FHP has yet to provide any further updates on its investigation.
However, the mourning mother shared a message for the person who hit the ‘love of her life.’
‘I hope they are sorry that they took his life. Now our lives are shattered because of what happened,’ she said.
Now, Ulicky is forced with the unimaginable task of telling her daughter that her father, who would have turned 32 on March 18, will never come home again.
‘I never thought I’d see the day where I have to tell my child that, ‘Hey, daddy’s gone. He’s not coming back,’ she said.
Ulicky said Neal was a US Army veteran she described as ‘funny’ and ‘outgoing.’
The pair share a two-year-old daughter named Arianna, who Ulicky hopes remembers her dad as ‘loving’ and ‘noble.’
‘I haven’t been home all day. It’s been hard for me,’ she said. ‘I’m going to bed in an empty bed without my fiancé. And that is the toughest thing I’ve done… It’s a pain I wish on nobody.
‘He was the love of my life. He will always be a part of me,’ she added.