PHOENIX — Adriana Cuevas was walking on the Grand Avenue roadway Sunday night when she was hit and killed by two vehicles, but only one driver stopped to help.
“I feel like she probably would have been alive if [the first car] would have stayed there and called the ambulance,” Liz Gallo, Cuevas’ aunt, said crying.
Cuevas, 29, was “very loving to all her family,” her aunt said. But, above all, she loved spending time with the children around her after not being able to have any of her own.
“She was always there for my children,” Gallo said with a broken voice. “She would take them when she would get out of work and they would play PlayStation and be on their games. They are now in disbelief.”
Gallo and her niece are only four years apart, a small gap that bonded them since childhood.
On Friday, Gallo says she was going through some personal things and called Cuevas for support and advice. They depended on each other. It turned out to be their last conversation.
“It was three in the morning, my sister called me and told me the horrible news. I’ve been up since then,” Gallo said.
Cuevas was ran over by two cars near 39th Avenue and Grand Avenue about 10:30 p.m.
Phoenix police said the driver that hit her first took off. The second vehicle remained on the scene and cooperated.
Before Cuevas was hit and killed, Leslie Castellanos said she was traveling southeast on Grand Ave to go pick up her husband at work when she saw Cuevas walking in the middle of the road.
“I could have hit her myself because she was so close to my car,” said Castellanos as she admits being scared at first. “She just kept running back and forth through all the different lanes.”
Castellanos said she pulled over and called 911, but said it took her 40 minutes for her call to get through as she witnessed other cars swerving, trying to avoid hitting Cuevas.
“She looked scared, nervous, I’m not sure, but she looked like something was wrong,” Castellanos added.
Although they were close, Gallo said she wasn’t aware of her niece having any mental problems and said it was out of character for Cuevas to be walking or running in the middle of the road.
Cuevas didn’t live close to where the accident happened. Her aunt said she was likely trying to visit a friend.
Phoenix detectives are still investigating but have not released any suspect information or a vehicle description.
“If I could talk to that person that did this to my niece, I’d tell them to turn themselves in, it’s not fair for my family or her,” said Gallo.
The family has set up a GoFundMe account for funeral expenses.
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