ARLINGTON, Texas — Annaleah and Mary Karth were sisters. But they were so different.
Annaleah was quiet, shy and imaginative.
Mary loved the spotlight.
“Definitely the baby of the family,” the girls’ older sister Rebekah Chojnacki said of Mary. “She loved to get attention.”
Annaleah was 17.
Mary was 13.
But their lives were cut short while they were on their way to visit Rebekah in Arlington back in May 2013 for what was supposed to be a special family weekend.
“My mom was on the way with my younger siblings for both my master’s graduation and my wedding, which were on the same weekend,” Rebekah said. “And there was a crash in Georgia.”
A semi hit their car from behind and spun it under the rear of another tractor-trailer.
Annaleah died at the scene. Because Mary survived for a few days at a Georgia hospital, her family was able to donate her organs after her death.
What happened to the Karth family is called an underride crash. That’s the name given to crashes when a car slides underneath a tractor-trailer.
The U.S. requires rear guards on the back of all semi-trailers, but the guards rarely hold up in a crash. Underride crashes are often deadly.
Statistics aren’t tracked, but in a series of investigations on the issue, WUSA-TV discovered the trucking industry itself admitted during a trial that more than 200 people die every year in underride accidents.
Rebekah and her family say the technology exists to make the guards stronger. They have spent years lobbying Congress to tighten regulations.
“We realized as a family that you can fight the one truck driver who caused this, or you can fight the systemic issue that’s the ongoing problem as a public health matter,” she said.
Despite having bipartisan support, little had come of their efforts until now.
Lawmakers are considering tying tighter regulations to a 2020 transportation funding bill and a national trucking industry now says it’s open to tougher standards on rear guard rails.
“This is my sisters' legacy, and we want to honor that legacy,” Rebekah said. “The best way we can do that is to give their lives meaning.”
“We can’t fix what happened, but every life we save makes it meaningful.”
Rebekah is an Honors College advisor at The University of Texas at Arlington. She also teaches classes there.
She shares her personal story with students each year – a living lesson in resilience and perseverance.
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