Nearly two years after a little boy was severely injured and his mother was killed in a car crash in Miramar, the boy’s father died after crashing an ATV in South Florida earlier this week.
On Dec. 19, 2022, Cristina Hernandez, 30, picked up her then-7-year-old son, Jacob Estrada, from school in Miramar just before a teenaged driver violently crashed into the back of their car. The teenaged driver was speeding over 100 mph just before the crash, a probable cause affidavit said.
Hernandez was killed. Jacob was in a coma for weeks at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital after the crash, Anthony Estrada, Hernandez’s fiance and Jacob’s father, said at a news conference in Miramar early last year.
On Wednesday, Estrada, 38, was visiting family in Hialeah and rode a relative’s ATV around the 5000 block of West Fifth Avenue about 8:30 p.m., said Officer Scarlett Hernandez, a spokesperson for Hialeah Police. He lost control while making a left turn and crashed into a home along West Fifth Avenue and was severely injured. He was flown by helicopter to Ryder Trauma Center, where he died.
“He was truly a beautiful light in this world that was dimmed far too soon,” his family wrote in a GoFundMe online fundraiser Friday evening. “There are stories in life that seem so unfair, and this is one you will remember.”
Estrada’s family said in the post on GoFundMe that Estrada died the night before Jacob’s ninth birthday.
“There are no words to describe the pain this family has endured, and the difficult road that lies ahead,” Estrada’s family wrote. “Life can change in the blink of an eye, but love is eternal.”
Hernandez was pregnant when she died, Estrada said at the news conference in Miramar last year. She planned to surprise her fiance and Jacob with the news on Christmas morning.
After Hernandez’s funeral, Estrada shared a video tribute on his Facebook account with photos of them — at the beach with Jacob, smiling with their arms around each other or sitting next to each other on a boat out on the water.
“I have made a promise to Cristina that I will do everything in my power to make sure our little boy comes home stronger than ever and I will never break that promise!” Estrada wrote in the Facebook post.
After the 2022 crash, doctors believed Jacob’s long-term prognosis was poor, if he survived at all, according to a February 2023 press release from Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital. Estrada and other family members prayed and “remained by his bedside ever since.” He was discharged and walking on his own.
Jacob regained consciousness in early 2023 and was in speech and physical therapy, his father previously said at the Miramar news conference. His liver, kidneys, lungs, intestines, heart and head were all damaged in the crash with his mother.
“He was in a coma, a traumatic coma and we didn’t know if he would ever wake up,” Dr. Allan Greissman said in a prepared statement the hospital shared on Facebook in May 2023.
Cristhian Andres Bravo Gonzalez, who was 16 years old at the time of the crash and did not have a license, was arrested and charged as an adult. He remains in jail, and his case is pending in Broward County court. He has pleaded not guilty to all 10 charges he faces, court records show.
Bravo Gonzalez’s father, Jose Miguel Bravo De La Torre, was also arrested on a charge of permitting an unauthorized operator to drive. Court records in that case were not accessible Friday night.