Trapped in car for hours, young woman sends video to family before dying in US blizzard

A 22-year-old girl was found dead over Christmas weekend in Buffalo, New York, in the United States, after being trapped in her car because of the blizzard that paralyzed the west of the state, as her family told the CNN .

Anndel Taylor, who had moved to Buffalo from North Carolina, was returning from work at a nursing home. She was just a six-minute drive from her home when she got stuck in the snow. Relatives made frantic searches after failing to keep in touch with her.

Tomeshia Brown, one of the young woman’s older sisters, told the CNN that the victim sent a video in her sisters’ group around 3 pm on Friday (23). In the video, Anndel shows the snow and the surrounding landscape, all white. She told sisters who live in North Carolina that she was trapped and the snow kept falling.

The girl then called the emergency number and was waiting for rescuers, as told by her sister and Wanda Brown Steele, Taylor’s mother.

“His plan was to wait until the police arrived,” said the sister. But if it didn’t work out, “she would get out of the car and walk, as she had run out of gas.” The idea, according to the victim herself, was to sleep in the car waiting for help and, if nothing happened, try to walk home.

The family says they kept in touch with Anndel as the rest of the day dragged on. At one point, the girl sent a separate message to one of the sisters, outside the group, to say that she was starting to panic.

In the wee hours of Christmas Eve, Anndel sent her last video message to the group chat. In the video, she opens the driver’s side window of her car, revealing a road turned into a snowy desert. A van that also appears to be stuck is seen at the end of the street with its hazard lights on. Anndel wrote in the group chat that she thought the snow would probably be waist-deep if she drove out.

Around 9:00 am on Christmas Eve, members of her family in North Carolina called and sent several messages. “We wrote to the group, asking if she was okay,” said the mother. The family was alarmed by the lack of responses.

“A couple of hours later, my sister tracked her phone,” continued the mother, Brown. “She must have shared her location with that aunt. And then we realized it was still in the snow.”

The family sent the location to Anndel Taylor’s relatives in Buffalo, but when they got there, they found the young woman’s car, but could not see her inside.

“Then I posted the information on a private Facebook page called ‘Buffalo Blizzard 2022’ and asked for help,” Brown said. She posted the address of the tracked phone, and later that night, she received a phone call from a man. “He said he had checked her pulse and that she had died,” her mother said.

“I couldn’t believe it. It was like a punch in the stomach, a pain I’ve never felt before.” Taylor’s mother told CNN who was in shock.

The mother also said that it was only the next day that her daughter’s body was removed from the car. The operation was possible after a woman sent a message in the Facebook group where the family alert was. The resident had located the car and the young woman’s body.

The woman told her family in Charlotte that she would not leave until someone came to get her.

With emergency crews unable to reach the car, the woman waited until Taylor’s Buffalo relatives arrived. The young woman’s body was then removed to another vehicle, which took her to a hospital.

After leaving multiple voicemail messages over the Christmas weekend, the family in Charlotte did not hear a response from authorities until Monday evening. The message said that they would rescue Anndel at that time. The family then warned that the girl’s body had already been removed the day before.

“I want to see this story through to the end because the city was unable to help her,” her mother accused.

Mark Poloncarz, an Erie County official, told the CNN on Monday two-thirds of the equipment that had been sent to help clear snow during the height of the storm got stuck along the way.

Poloncarz added that a historian for the Buffalo Fire Department said that this was the first time in the history of the group that it was not possible to respond to emergency calls due to the severity of the weather conditions.

Erie County officials said Tuesday that the county had restored its emergency response service, but they were still pleading with residents to avoid traveling to and from Buffalo and not to take highways.

THE CNN contacted the Buffalo Police Department for more details.

As of Tuesday night, Anndel Taylor’s cause of death was still unknown to her Charlotte relatives.

Taylor was described by her sister as “a caring and caring person. She hugged a lot, worried about many things”, reported the sister.

“If she could help, she would go right away,” the mother continued. “She had a lot of friends here in Charlotte, a lot of people cared about her.”

Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles released a statement of condolences to the victim’s family and friends.

“Anndel was taken from this world too soon, and words cannot express the pain her loved ones feel at this difficult time,” Lyles’ statement reads. “It was a devastating storm that brought tremendous tragedy, and our community here in Charlotte is mourning his family.”

Her family set up a GoFundMe campaign to pay for funeral expenses.

Anndel Taylor would have turned 23 next month.