Mom, daughter return home after fatal hit-and-run crash

Balloons reading “Get Well” lined the roadway in Bluffton’s Woodbridge neighborhood as a mother and daughter involved in a hit-and-run crash that killed 14-year-old Grace Sulak made their way home Wednesday afternoon for the first time since the tragic wreck.

Andrea Dewey and her daughter, Emma Dewey, 14, were escorted home with the help of a medical transport that Andrea rode in.

Emma Dewey rode with their neighbor, Brian Watkins, who was first on the scene the after the May 7 crash on eastbound I-26 in Calhoun County.

“They were anxious to be home,” Watkins said Wednesday outside the Deweys’ home. “They are tired. Emma slept the whole way home.”

When asked whether she and her daughter would be available for an interview, Andrea Dewey declined in order for the pair to get some rest.

Watkins said the way home required them to pass the scene of the crash, where the tree they struck when Andrea Dewey’s Nissan Rogue ran off the road is still visibly damaged.

“I diverted Emma’s attention from it,” Watkins said. “Emma still doesn’t remember anything about the crash.”

Emma walked for the first time May 13 after emerging from a medically induced coma. Later that day, she was told by her mother about Sulak’s death in the crash that happened as Andrea Dewey was driving both of the girls back from a track and field meet in Columbia.

“She kept saying ‘It should have been me that died,’ ” Chris Dewey, Emma’s father, said Friday.

Chris Dewey said the hard part ahead for the mother and daughter will be emotional healing.

“The doctors sedated Emma for the ride because she was really nervous about the trip home,” Watkins said.

Both Andrea and Emma Dewey were silent as they were taken inside their home Wednesday. Watkins helped Emma Dewey into a wheelchair, and Andrea Dewey was brought in on a gurney and waved to her parents as she approached the home’s front door, where balloons welcoming them home were placed.

For Watkins, seeing his neighbors safely home after helping them on the side of the highway on the day of the crash came as a relief and brought some closure.

“It was a good feeling when they got back safe the way they wrecked on I-26,” Watkins said.

This story was originally published May 18, 2016 at 6:49 PM with the headline "Mom, daughter return home after fatal hit-and-run crash."