SOUTHINGTON, Conn — A mother is speaking out after her daughter was killed in a crash on Interstate-84 last year. Kristine Kulmacz spoke exclusively with FOX61 on Wednesday, the day after the family's attorney filed a lawsuit against the Connecticut State Police (CSP) and Department of Transportation (DOT) for $200 million in damages.
Kulmacz's daughter, 25-year-old Jayan Bryan, was killed in the crash along I-84 East between Cheshire and Southington, and her best friend in the passenger's seat, 23-year-old D’Yanna Wallace, was seriously injured.
The attorney’s office claims the two women were left on the side of the road for about nine hours before help came.
The crash is now the center of a lawsuit filed with the Office of the Claims Commissioner Tuesday, accusing CSP and CT DOT of wrongful death, negligence and recklessness, among other items.
While Bryan's mother knows nothing can bring back her daughter, she’s hoping to save another family from experiencing the pain she’s gone through and is still searching for answers about her daughter's death one year after the crash.
On February 20, 2021, Kulmacz remembers getting a call from State Police.
"I just kept asking, 'where’s my daughter, where’s my daughter,' because by now, I knew something was wrong," she told FOX61. “He just said that she’s been in a horrible accident and she didn’t make it.”
FOX61 obtained body camera video from the law firm representing the two women.
According to court documents, a trooper responded to a call around 2 a.m. from a driver who hit a large piece of debris from a crashed car. The trooper can be seen in the bodycam video moving the piece from the road, but the lawsuit claims the trooper didn’t investigate where it came from.
The trooper allegedly returned to the area five hours later to find Wallace, seriously injured, but still alive, and calling for help in the passenger seat. But Bryan, the driver, had passed away by this time, according to court documents.
First responders had to cut the two out of the mangled vehicle.
The complaints filed each seek $100 million in damages each for Wallace and Bryan.
"We need to provide proper funding as well as additional training to state troopers so they can do their job and so that is what’s really concerning us," Peter C. Bowman with BBB Attorneys said. "There was a time period, and we still don’t know exactly how long because we’re waiting for the police report and the medical examiner's report, in which there is the likelihood that she may have been able to have been saved."
We reached out to Connecticut state police for comment on the matter, but the agency said they could not comment on pending litigation.
Thursday would have been Bryan's 26th birthday. Her other best friend and roommate, Maxine Smith, remembers the vibrant young woman.
"We loved her. She was the life of the party," Smith said. "Her and my daughter were really close, like that was her second mom."
"We lost her three days after her 25th birthday," Kulmacz said. "Unfortunately, she paid the ultimate price and we’re never going to get her back but if we can do something so that a family goes through 10 percent of what we did."
As for Wallace, the passenger who survived, FOX61 is told by her attorney that she is going through rehab and has undergone about 15 surgeries since the crash.
The lawsuit is still in the early stages of the process but FOX61 will continue to keep you updated.
Elisha Machado is a reporter at FOX61 News. She can be reached at emachado@fox61.com. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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