Akeena Avanel Bennett and her sister Keanna Ariel Bennett were on on their way to church Sunday, driving in the South Florida sunshine with their godmother to a service in Fort Lauderdale.
But instead of an afternoon of song and prayer, the girls’ family is in mourning. There was a devastating crash on Interstate 95 and trips to a hospital. Akeena, 2, died in the crash. Keanna, 5, who had been on life support at the hospital, died Monday night, according to a post on their mother’s Facebook page.
The girls’ parents, Annette and Keane Bennett, of Deerfield Beach, had been out of town, having flown to New York for a wedding, Annette Bennett said Monday. After receiving news of the crash, they returned home to be with Keanna.
The child was at Broward Health Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale.
“Our little Keanna fought a good fight this past 24hrs. She gain her precious little wings 13mins ago,” the family said on Facebook. “Thanks for all your prayers but it is done.”
Keanna studied ballet, and in photographs, made beautiful smiles.
Bennett established a GoFundMe page for her daughters on which she wrote, “Our children are gone. We are totally broken.”
She also described how her husband had life insurance so that in case anything happened to him, she and the girls would be OK.
“I never thought it would be the other way around,” Bennett wrote.
In one of the photographs on the fundraising site, Keanna has her arm around her little sister’s shoulder.
The girls appear happy, and are wearing matching navy striped dresses decorated with lemons, and ribbons in their hair.
Their mother dated the picture on Facebook as having been taken on Easter.
The girls’ godmother, Rashida Raby, 34, of Deerfield Beach, was taking them Sunday to the Salvation Army in Fort Lauderdale for a Christian worship service when the crash happened, Bennett said.
The 11 a.m. service is held at the community center, at 100 SW Ninth Ave. in Fort Lauderdale, the organization said.
Raby’s 2014 Toyota Corolla and a 2019 Kia Forte collided about 10:45 a.m. in the southbound lanes of I-95, just north of Sample Road in Deerfield Beach, the Florida Highway Patrol said.
There were no child safety seats in the Toyota, and it was not known if the children were wearing seat belts during the crash, FHP Lt. Alvaro Feola said Monday.
“I’m not sure why there were no child seats in the car,” Bennett said. “We definitely use them.”
Florida law requires any child age 5 and under to be secured in a crash-tested, federally approved child restraint device.
As a child ages, those devices progress from a separate safety seat or carrier or a vehicle manufacturer’s built-in seat to a booster seat and then seat belts.
Raby also was taken to a hospital, FHP said. Her condition was not available Monday.
Raby was “pretty shaken up, too,” Bennett said of her daughters’ godmother, who is not a blood relative.
The driver of the Kia was identified by FHP as Zachary Scott, 26, of Illinois. He was taken to Broward Health North in Deerfield Beach, FHP said. On Monday, the hospital did not have him listed as a patient.
The Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office performed an autopsy on Akeena; the findings were withheld as part of the open police investigation.
Feola said if any charges are going to be filed, that will not happen until the case is presented to the State Attorney’s Office.
ljtrischitta@sunsentinel.com, 954-356-4233 or Twitter @LindaTrischitta
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2-year-old killed, 5-year-old on life support after I-95 crash