HOUSTON — Birthdays are tough for Dee Estelle. Her daughter Gabbie would have turned 28 on Wednesday if a distracted driver hadn't killed her in 2015.
Estelle, her husband and their three children were heading home a few days before Christmas after seeing the holiday lights at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth.
The family was laughing and singing Christmas songs when a driver who was texting slammed into them at 70 mph.
Gabbie, then 19, and her brother, 23-year-old Alex Trejo, were killed.
"I refused to believe that they were gone but I think in my heart I knew they were," Estelle said at a news conference on her daughter's birthday. "And I kept telling them, 'Hey it's mom, wake up. C'mon wake up' and I kept telling them, I kept talking to them saying, 'If we get separated, I'll find you. Don't worry, I'll find you.'"
April is National Distracted Driving Awareness Month so Estelle attended a news conference in Houston to beg Texas drivers not to text when they're behind the wheel.
In 2022, 484 people died and 2,825 were seriously injured in distracted driving crashes, according to AAA.