A family in the Inland Empire is mourning the loss of their mother after she was killed earlier this week when a tire from another vehicle loosened and struck her car as she traveled through Pomona.<\/p>\n
Ingrid Zapata, 57, died early Monday while heading home from Los Angeles International Airport. The matriarch had just dropped off some friends for a flight and was headed to her job as a school bus driver when tragedy struck.<\/p>\n
While Zapata was traveling on the 60 Freeway, an SUV traveling on the westbound lanes of the freeway lost a tire near Garvey Avenue. The tire bounced across several lanes and over the center divider into oncoming traffic, then struck Zapata\u2019s windshield. The sudden occurrence caused her to lose control of her vehicle and crash into the guardrail, killing her.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur minds go to a negative place, but I couldn\u2019t imagine it would be something like this,\u201d Kimberly Paiz, Zapata\u2019s daughter, said.<\/p>\n
While Zapata\u2019s loved ones try to wrap their heads around her sudden loss, they\u2019re also trying their best to process their grief.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so hard because I don\u2019t think I said \u2018I love you\u2019 enough to her,\u201d Amanda Alonzo, the woman\u2019s sister, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt sounds like something from a movie,\u201d Paiz said. \u201cHow is it that it\u2019s her car and the tire hit her side? It doesn\u2019t make sense and it will never make sense to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zapata\u2019s family recalled the good times they had with her and remembered her fondly as being the foundation of their family. Determined to spread goodness in the world, Zapata was known for her kind heart and eagerness to help others.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s all she wanted, making sure people had a better life,\u201d Alonzo said. \u201cWhichever way she could \u2013 cooking a meal, taking them to the airport of helping them with documents.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI spoke to her Sunday,\u201d Paiz said. \u201cWe went to church and she held me a little longer that day. I keep going back to that. She held me and I look back thinking God gave me one last tight hug with my mom. I didn\u2019t know it would be the last.\u201d<\/p>\n
The driver of the SUV involved in the incident was not hurt in the occurrence. It\u2019s still unclear how the tire came off.<\/p>\n
The case remains under investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A family in the Inland Empire is mourning the loss of their mother after she was killed earlier…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":144038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,2961,224,5337,28985],"class_list":{"0":"post-144037","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-los-angeles","12":"tag-losangeles","13":"tag-pomona"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115024936569819025","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}