Ty Porter Arizona dad speaks out about the deaths of children Tate and Evie Porter , 9 and 11, after their mother, Dani Hancock Porter becoming ‘distracted’ while driving after the couple’s 3 kids ‘rough playing’ in the backseat and leading to her crashing car.
The father of an Arizona household who lost two children in a tragic car accident when the a son and daughter were killed when a mother’s attention on the road was temporarily distracted has spoken out.
Ty Porter of Gilbert, addressing the grief following the deaths of Tate and Evie Porter, 9 and 11 year old respectively said the episode has said his ‘heart breaks that I cannot wake up to their smiles,’ following his son and daughter’s tragic deaths on Wednesday.
Police said the children’s mother Dani Hancock Porter, 36, who survived, ‘may have been distracted’ when their vehicle slammed into a tow truck along the shoulder of the East Valley freeway.
Arizona dad shares his grief
At the time, the family’s 3 children were sitting in the backseat, when the children began to play aggressively, leading to the mom attempting to quell their disquiet only to lose her concentration on the road and plunder into the back of a tow truck.
‘As I understand it, it was kids playing loudly, roughhousing in the backseat, or some kind of thing that distracted her from the road, from what she told us’, Bart Graves, a Department of Public Safety spokesperson, told AZFamily.
The collision led to the deaths of the 9 and 11 year old brother and sister while their 6 year old sibling and mother were able to survive the horrific collision, which involved a total of 4 vehicles. Both mother and son were shortly after released from hospital with minor injuries.
In an emotional Facebook post, Ty shared memories of his children and said they were ‘my whole world.’
‘I will always remember you this way’, the grieving father said, sharing images of his son and daughter playing sports, enjoying days at the beach and smiling in family photos.
‘Being your Dad has been the best part of my existence,’ he wrote. ‘Coaching you. Teaching you. Learning from you. Making too many memories to count. Cheering for you. Loving you.
‘Your brightness will continue to live on through the many people who you have blessed with your love and friendship.
‘I will miss you so dearly. My heart breaks that I cannot wake up to your smiles. That I can’t hear that amazing laugh. That we can’t play catch together. That I can’t cheer you on and coach you from the sidelines any longer.
‘That we can’t have our talks in my truck or answering you many questions about life. Our drives up to Heber to unplug and make memories.
Mom faces no criminal charges amid warnings of safe driving
‘I will miss that I no longer get tuck you in at night and tell you how proud you make me. I will miss giving you daddy snuggles.’
He said his time with his children were ‘the best years of my life’, and ‘I cannot understand how I do this without you with me.’
Just weeks before the tragedy, Ty also shared a trip he took Tate on to see his first concert to attend an Imagine Dragons performance.
He said the band were his sons ‘favorite’ and he was ‘counting down the days since I surprised him with the tickets!!’
‘It was such a fun night and I’m so happy I got to have some bro time with him and got to be apart of his first concert,’ the father wrote.
The crash unfolded around 10:15am on Wednesday morning when Dani Porter‘s vehicle struck a tow truck pulled over on the side of the road while driving ‘at a significant rate of speed.’
Another boy, 6, was also in the vehicle when the crash occurred, and suffered minor injuries, while Porter was hospitalized.
Graves told AZFamily after the collision: ‘Suffice to say, the force of the impact was such that it not only sheared off the right side of this pickup truck where they were riding, but they were killed instantly by the force of this impact.
‘They didn’t have a chance, and it’s very sad.’
The tow truck driver did not sustain any injuries from the accident.
The children’s mother is not facing any criminal charges, but could potentially be charged with a misdemeanor for distracted driving, the DPS said.
‘Slow down, pay attention. Do not get distracted by things in your car if you have kids,’ Graves advised. ‘Stay off the cellphone. By all means, do not drive impaired or fatigued.’
