VANCOUVER, Wash. (KOIN) — An infant died and her mother was critically injured in a rollover crash in the 26000 block of NE Bradford Road in Vancouver Thursday evening.
Chris Pfeifer, who is the husband and father of the pair, said he is “not completely sure” his 26-year-old wife Amanda will survive.
The 8-month-old baby, Sipf Pfeifer, died at the scene.
The crash happened shortly before 7 p.m. Thursday. “They were coming home from Mandi’s new babysitting job” at the time, Chris Pfeifer told KOIN 6 News.
Clark County Sheriff’s Sgt. Alex Schoening told KOIN 6 News Amanda Pfeifer was headed west on a section of Bradford Road that is windy and has a “high percentage grade downhill.”
That stretch of Bradford is used by various companies to move gravel from Livingston Mountain, he said, creating fairly heavy truck traffic at certain times of the day.
“It looks like as she was coming around the sweeping corner, the right side of her vehicle tires went off the road, and then she over-corrected, which is a common maneuver, to get back on the road,” Schoening said.
The Altima went into a slide across the road and hit a tree head-on.
“Based on the 911 call, passersby got the baby out of the vehicle and were performing CPR even before any rescue personnel arrived, which is just amazing,” he said. However, the baby died at the scene, the Clark County Sheriff’s Office said.
The passersby tried to get Amanda out of the car, too, but emergency crews had to mechanically get her out of the Altima.
In a note to KOIN 6 News, Pfeifer explained the origins of his daughter’s name:
“My daughter’s name is Persipfone Tyra Pfeifer. Persephone is from Greek mythology. We changed the middle of it to sipf instead of (seph) to sound more like the God Sif in Norwegian mythology and changed sif to sipf because our last name starts with pf. My daughter’s nickname was Sipf. Tyra means Thor’s warrior.”
Sgt. Schoening said he’s been a father for 15 years. “Every one of us that worked out there are parents and we’re dads or moms and it’s heartbreaking. It’s heartbreaking for the fire folks. We each have our own way of processing it. You know, we just pray that the next one doesn’t happen.”
