DETROIT – A coroner in Kentucky confirmed that the wrong-way driver who collided into and killed a family of five from Metro Detroit had an extremely high blood alcohol level at the time of the crash.
Link to fundraiser for the Abbas family.
Joey Bailey, the driver of the pickup truck, was driving the wrong way on I-75 in Kentucky. Bailey, along with the Abbas family from Northville, were all killed in the crash.
READ: Driver in fatal wrong-way crash that killed Northville family had BAC 4 times legal limit
Family member Rana Abbas Taylor spoke to Local 4 about the incident.
"There isn't a single photo of those children where they're not smiling. They were very happy children," she said.
Taylor lost her only sister, Rima Abbas, her brother-in-law Issam, and her two young nieces and one nephew in the crash.
"You feel like you're in this nightmare and you hope you're going to wake up because it's so surreal," she said.
The family lived in the same neighborhood as Taylor and they spent nearly every day together.
"It seems as if such a large part of our lives has just been ripped from us," she said. "One split-second decision can change the lives of so many people."
Issam Abbas, 42, his wife, 38-year-old Rima Abbas, along with their three children were killed in the crash on I-75 in Lexington, Kentucky. The couple and their children -- 14-year-old Ali Abbas, 13-year-old Isabella Abbas and 7-year-old Giselle Abbas -- were headed home from a vacation in Florida.