A New York father horrifically discovered that his two teenage daughters were killed in a car crash after he tracked their phones to the wreckage when they stopped answering his texts.
Hailey Trumble, 19, and Shelby Trumble, 17, were killed in the crash in Ira, NY, — about 25 miles outside of Syracuse — while the siblings were returning from Seabreeze Amusement Park in Rochester Thursday night, their heartbroken father Brian Trumble told People.
The girls were driving to their home in Fulton when their Chevrolet Cobalt “crested a hill,” veered into the opposite lane and struck a Jeep Cherokee at around 6 p.m., the Cayuga County Sheriff’s Office confirmed in a press release.
Hailey and Shelby Trumble were killed at the scene of the crash. The driver of the Jeep, Robin Latham, 59, was rushed to Syracuse University Hospital with serious injuries but is in stable condition, authorities said.
Brian Trumble, 45, grew worried that his daughters failed to return home and sent several texts, but never received a reply, he told the outlet.
He figured his daughters were driving through with poor cell service, and they would get back to him soon.
However, around the same time as the crash, he used the “Find My Friends” app to check on the girls and saw they were on Ferris Road in Cato — about three miles away from where he was.
The grief-stricken father said he told his girlfriend about the girl’s status when she revealed dreadful news.
“She said, ‘Oh my God, I heard something happened on Ferris Road,’” he told the outlet.
He immediately rushed towards the location but was stopped by a police officer blocking the road.
After anxiously waiting near the crash site to find out what happened to his daughters, the father was informed that two girls had been involved in an accident down the road and that one had died.
“I just sat on my bumper and I couldn’t stand up,” the devastated father recalled.
He later found out his daughter Shelby Trumble died instantly in the tragic wreck, but his daughter Hailey was still alive when first responders arrived.
Brian Trumble said fireman Josh Lovejoy was comforting his daughter Hailey in her final moments.
The crash is still under investigation.
“It’s much too early to say exactly what happened, and what caused this crash and what factors were involved,” Sheriff Brian Schneck told CNY Central. “But we are looking at every piece of evidence that we can.”
Schneck added that investigators have not found any evidence that the drivers involved were intoxicated at the time of the crash.
In the final face-to-face conversation with his daughters, Brian Trumble told the outlet that he handed the teens $100 for the amusement park and encouraged them to “have fun and behave” before they left that morning.
The sisters had only recently graduated from high school — Hailey in 2023 and Shelby in 2024 — and were completing an Oswego BOCES Cosmetology program, their obituaries read.
The sisters had “tremendous empathy and love” for animals and volunteered with the CNY Cat Coalition.
In the days leading up to their deaths, the girls had just rescued two kittens — Smokey and Bandit — who were thrown out a car window.
Their father shared that both of his daughters were organ donors, which illuminated how they always wanted to “help other people” in need.
“They touched so many people,” Brain Trumble told People.
“Everybody that met ’em just loved them. They’re just super sweet and kind and really smart, very smart. They were pretty much just figuring out what they were wanting to do.”