Tragedy struck an Alabama family over the weekend when a father and his son were killed in a head-on collision with each other early Saturday morning.
According to Alabama news website AL.com, Jeff Brasher, a 50-year-old bread deliveryman, was on his way to work and his son, Austin, was on his way home when the crash occurred about 16 kilometres from the family’s home.
Speaking with the news site, Brasher’s sister said her brother was on his way to pick up his orders for the day when bizarre crash occurred.
“It’s an unexpected, unbelievable tragedy,” Pam Dennis told AL.com. “There’s no explanation for something so random.”
According to state troopers, the incident happened at 4:10 a.m. when the 2006 Ford pickup truck the elder Brasher was driving collided with his son’s 2004 Chevrolet pickup.
The father died at the scene of the crash while the younger Brasher died in hospital a few hours later.
Police said neither man was wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash and alcohol was a factor in the accident.
“I can tell you that at 4 a.m. on Saturday morning, lives changed forever,” Dennis told AL.com. “I don’t think anybody other than people who are no longer with us know exactly what happened. They were both on that road at the same time, and all of our lives changed. We’re not going to let this separate our family.”
Apparently, Austin was on his way home from a party when the crash occurred, according to his cousin Monica Marie Aker.
“Austin did drink and was coming home from partying when they crashed,” Aker told People magazine. “To know that they collided head-on is one of the hardest things to comprehend. Our whole community is just devastated by this.”
Aker told the magazine that Austin was “very well liked” in high school and known as “the life of the party.”
“In high school, he was quiet, but everyone knew who he was. He was the little guy driving the big truck,” Aker told People. “He was very well liked and could really get along with anybody.”
Aker said that if Austin had survived the crash, it “would have destroyed him” knowing his father died in the accident.
“My worst fear was that Austin would make it through and then kill himself because he wouldn’t have been able to deal with killing his father,” the cousin told People.
A joint funeral is planned for the pair on Wednesday.
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