The three teenage friends hopped into a car after the last school bell rang at Dallas' Adamson High School early Friday afternoon.
JAKE STEVENS/DMN
The weekend had just begun, and the girls were headed to pick up the younger sister of the car's driver, 16-year-old Miriam Ramirez.
But the girls never arrived at the sister's middle school.
The Ford Taurus in which they were riding spun out of control along a narrow, rough frontage road and slammed into an oncoming SUV. When the Taurus came to rest, it was facing the opposite direction. The force shattered the car's windows and bent the metal along the passenger side, pinning the three girls inside.
Police said Miriam didn't have a driver's license. She may have been speeding before trying to navigate a sharp turn in the 8100 block of Mayforge Drive, where the road turns into East Ledbetter Drive, police said.
Greg Hatley, a retired firefighter, and a friend were driving a few hundred feet behind the SUV.
"We heard the noise," he said.
Hatley continued on the sharp turn, then parked his car and ran to the Taurus.
Looking through the car's broken windows, he said, he saw Miriam lying atop the front-seat passenger, 15-year-old Lilliana Reynos of Dallas.
Rosario Felemon, 16, of Dallas lay limp in the back seat, Hatley said.
"Just to see something like that - it was devastating," he said. "All I could do was pray for them. There was nothing I could do for them other than check their pulse."
Paramedics arrived a few minutes later and determined that Lilliana had already died. But they took Miriam and Rosario to Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas.
Two women and an infant girl riding in the SUV were injured.
The women were transported to Parkland Memorial Hospital, and the girl was taken to Children's Medical Center Dallas. None had life-threatening injuries, police said. Their identities were not known.
Word of the crash spread Friday evening among friends, family and Adamson students and faculty. Tearful and grief-stricken, many flocked to the hospital, where both girls later died.
"When you become part of the Adamson family, you truly are family," Adamson principal Rawly Sanchez said. "We are very hurt at this point at the loss of three fabulous ladies."
On Saturday, friends and family tried to make sense of the accident. They described the girls as always upbeat and popular despite being underclassmen in a school of 1,300 students.
Friends and loved ones trickled through Rosario's home Saturday morning to offer their condolences and to tell stories about her.
"I thought she was really nice," Alexis Loera, 15, recalled. "She loved everybody."
The girls were remembered as solid athletes at Adamson. Rosario started as point guard on the girls junior varsity basketball team. Lilliana left the team before the season ended, but she continued to attend games, said Keith Smith, who coaches the girls varsity team.
"She would still come to the games because she was cousins with another girl on the team," he said.
Lilliana and Rosario also played on the school's JV soccer team. The school's soccer games scheduled for Saturday were canceled.
Before Miriam was killed, some of her cousins who attend Adamson ate lunch in Sanchez's office Friday. They talked about various subjects and mentioned Miriam, he said.
"Miriam commented to [her cousins] earlier that she was just looking forward to turning 17," he said.
Before the school day ended, Miriam and her cousin, 15-year-old Nubia Ubaldo, talked about their weekend plans.
Miriam told her that she would come over to Nubia's house later Friday night to hang out.
"She was a good person," said Nubia, an Adamson freshman. "She was smart and had good grades."
Nubia said she planned to join friends, family and teachers from Adamson at 8 p.m. Saturday for a candlelight vigil at the school. And grief counselors will be at Adamson on Monday, Sanchez said.
"Losing one is tough," he said. "But losing three is even more painful."
