‘I didn’t even say goodbye’: Man recounts discovering car crash that killed his wife and daughter
June 28, 2023
Christopher Chambers, a father and husband, recounted the day he and his son discovered the horrifying crash scene that killed his wife and their daughter in Santa Clara, California.
What happened: On June 14, Santa Clara police officers responded to a solo vehicle collision on San Tomas Expressway, where they located a white 2021 Tesla Model Y that crashed into a tree and burst into flames at around 2 p.m.
The occupants of the vehicle were identified to be Chambers’s 44-year-old wife, Beidi, and their 12-year-old daughter, Elyse. The two were pronounced dead at the scene by Santa Clara Fire Department paramedics.
Details on what caused the crash have not been released.
Chambers’s horrifying discovery: On a GoFundMe page, Chambers recalled the day of the incident that filled him with “dread” and “unbearable questions.” Chambers, who was home with his son Ethan, received a call from the doctor — who Beidi and Elyse were scheduled to have an appointment with — saying that the two did not arrive.
“I didn’t even say goodbye. Neither their phones nor their Tesla’s location could be traced. Minds racing, Ethan and I drove to the doctor’s office in an attempt to retrace their path. En route, we saw dark smoke billowing into the sky ahead of us. We ran towards it through the throng of emergency responders, only to find a burning, twisted white Tesla Model Y. Just like ours,” Chambers recounted.
As police restrained him, he provided his family’s vehicle identification number to police, who then confirmed it was theirs.
“Overwhelmed, I fell to my knees,” he wrote. “I’d often told Beidi that I wasn’t afraid of death – that I’d go first and be waiting for her when her time came. I desperately wished it had been me burning in that car instead – if only my willing sacrifice would bring my girls back.”
Chamber and Beidi: According to Chambers, he met Beidi while studying in China, where she was a student and a language tutor at Tsing Hua University. As the pair started dating, Chamber said he stayed in Beijing “just to be close to her.” A few years later, they married and moved to the U.S., where they built their American Dream and had two children.
“Their sudden absence has left a deep scar on our family,” Chambers wrote. “A grieving husband and father, a bewildered son, and Beidi’s mother, mourning the loss of her only daughter — not to mention all the extended family and friends whose lives were touched by their lives and love.”
The GoFundMe fundraiser has raised more than $90,000 as of Wednesday.
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