When a Valley father died in a highway crash on Interstate 17, what happened after showed the surviving family how his legacy will live on.
Anthony and Melanie Gonzales did all they could to make this Christmas as happy as it could be for their family and friends because what happened in the days leading up to it was anything but.
“Thank God he allowed us to have that last weekend together,” said Anthony Gonzales.
The Gonzales family said they're spending time with Rachel and Jamison Davis nearly every weekend. What started as some friends working at a local pizza joint turned into weekends in Flagstaff. Before they knew it, the two couples were raising their kids together.
There was even a time when they all lived in the same house. Between two Gonzalez kids and at times six Davis kids, Anthony said, ”It was a lot of kids under one roof.”
That’s what makes what happened days before Christmas even harder.
On December 20, Jamison was driving on I-17 in Anthem, headed to the post office to deliver Pokemon cards and then get a haircut. He told his wife before he left that he didn’t have work and would be home for dinner.
Around 3 p.m., he was involved in a fiery crash with three other cars.
It wasn’t until Rachel tracked his car at a tow yard that she started calling hospitals.
ABC15 was told that Jamison was admitted as a John Doe.
By December 22, doctors had to share the grave news that Jamision, a father of six and a member of the military, was declared brain dead.
By Christmas Eve, the family was at the hospital to say goodbye with a donor walk.
“They walk the patient through the O.R. doors and that is where you say goodbye. For surgery,” said Melanie.
Around Christmas day, three people in need of an organ got either Jamison’s kidney, liver or heart.
“In such a horrible tragedy, it just gives you a little bit of hope, a little bit of positivity that a little bit of him will live on. And God willing, Rachel will be able to hear his heart again one day,” said Anthony.
In the days that followed, some anonymous people in the Anthem community started a meal train that is slated to run until early February, they were able to fix a broken dishwasher in the Davis' house, and even paid their January mortgage.
The Gonzales family called them “The Anthem Angels.”
“I am so proud of the Anthem community,” said Melanie.
The grief here is great. However, it’s good to know there are some pretty great people to make it all a little easier.
An online fundraiser has been set up for Jamision’s funeral arrangements and other needs for the surviving family.
