Swerving car threw mom ‘like a doll’ while she pushed her baby in a stroller

Gabriel Lugo couldn’t have known, as his wife pushed their 11-month-old daughter in a stroller to the park on Friday morning, that she was on her way to the wrong place at the wrong time.

“It was a day like any other,” Lugo, who lives in Katy, Texas, near Houston, told KPRC. “I kissed her goodbye and I was about to leave for work.”

But when he followed Elizabeth out of the home, he found their dog, Biscuit, waiting for him, nervously panting in the driveway, which was strange because Elizabeth had taken Biscuit with her just a few minutes prior to that, according to the Houston Chronicle.

So Gabriel went looking for his wife, and it didn’t take long for him to happen upon a neighbor holding his daughter Julia, KRIV reported.

The stroller Julia had been riding in had spun off to one side of the home that a red sedan had slammed into. Elizabeth, 31, was pinned by the car, according to a previous KPRC report.

“I see my wife there, just thrown like a doll, struggling to breathe and bleeding out of her mouth,” Gabriel Lugo told the station. “I told her, ‘Elizabeth, breathe.’ And we waited for an ambulance to come.”

Elizabeth died of her injuries Sunday at Cy-Fair Hospital, according to KRIV.

“She lost function of the brain — no activity,” Gabriel told the station. “Around 1 a.m. we stopped the ventilator and she couldn’t breathe on her own. I told her all my plans for taking care of our daughter. I kissed her on her forehead. She liked when I did that.”

Had she survived, she probably would have been paralyzed from her shoulders down. Julia escaped from the collision with minor scrapes and bruises, and was not hospitalized.

Authorities have not released the identity of the driver of the red sedan, other than that he is a male who lives in the same Katy neighborhood as the Lugo family. Harris County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Thomas Gilliland told the Chronicle that the driver suffered a seizure just before the crash, and it’s unclear whether any charges will be filed against him.

“I’m very upset,” Gabriel Lugo told the newspaper. “I haven’t consulted with any lawyers yet, but I’m angry.”