YORK COUNTY, S.C. (CN2 NEWS) In July, Ashton Dickey, 16, and Amara Stagg, 16, died on a stretch of McConnells Highway in York County. South Carolina Highway Patrol said a car went into their lane and hit the the teenagers head on. The driver of that car, Wesley Blain, 29, also died.
York County Coroner Sabrina Gast is now confirming Blain was impaired at the time of the accident. South Carolina Highway Patrol Gary Miller says Blain fled the scene of another accident he was involved in just an hour before the fatal crash.
The parents of the young girls want people to know the crash wasn’t the fault of their daughters.
“It just makes it that much more heartbreaking,” said Dawn Dickey, Ashton Dickey’s mother. “These two girls had there whole lives ahead of them. And somebody who was extremely selfish and took no responsibility for his own life, and took their life.”
Ashton Dickey was a sophomore at Saint Anne Catholic School. The Dickey’s are working with the school to create a scholarship in Ashton’s name. So far, they’ve raised $5,000. Students at Saint Anne Catholic School have also started a hashtag with the words #BeKind.
“It feels like it just happened,” said Jim Dickey, “And it feels like she’s been gone for a long time.”
With their daughter gone, the Dickeys hold on to her memories. Jim retrieved Ashton’s phone from the car after the accident. He says he always keeps it in his office, fully charged.
“It reminds me of her, and people still call it,” said Jim, “We get phone calls every few days, and I still occasionally call her number just to listen to her voicemail.”
Because Jim and Dawn are locked out of Ashton’s phone, they are working with Apple to get access to Ashton’s iCloud so they could see her pictures. The Dickeys advise other parents to know their child’s phone password. It pains them, they say, that they will never see the last text messages she sent.
