Further details have emerged surrounding the tragic death of a 22-year-old New York woman who died trapped in her car as a winter storm hit Buffalo over the Christmas weekend.
Anndel Taylor, from Buffalo, became stranded in her vehicle while traveling home from work on December 23 after being caught in a winter storm that battered the northeast of the US, per the Daily Mail.
Taylor was raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, but had moved back to New York in order to care for her father and help with his dialysis treatments.
Speaking to WSOC, Taylor's mother, Wanda Brown Steele, said that her daughter had phoned 911 for help but intended to sleep out the storm in her car and walk home the following morning.
Watch the video Taylor sent to her family below:However, Taylor's body was tragically found in her car on Saturday (December 24) from what her mother believes to be carbon monoxide poisoning after the engine was left running for warmth and snow covered the exhaust.
Brown Steele has recently spoken to the New York Post about her daughter's tragic death and has revealed new details about the events that unfolded.
She revealed that her daughter wasn't returning calls the following morning after she intended to get some sleep, and the phone was still being tracked to the car.
"If she was rescued, she knows my number — she would have called to make sure nobody was worried about her," Brown Steele said. "So at that point, we knew something was wrong."
Brown Steele stated that a family friend had seen the car but assumed nobody could be inside. The third time he ventured outside, he smashed the window to find Taylor with her feet on the dashboard and her arms crossed. "I think she went peacefully," her mom went on.
Her body was found 24 hours after she had become stranded in her vehicle, and the police took a further 24 hours to arrive at the scene due to emergency vehicles not coping with the harsh weather conditions.
A volunteer group called "The Buffalo Blizzard" went out to assist, and called Brown Steele via Facetime from her daughter's vehicle. "I saw my baby lying there — she was iced. She was an icicle," she said.
Before her passing, Taylor had sent her family videos of the weather conditions surrounding her vehicle.
Ove video shared at approximately 4:15PM on Friday showed Taylor's car windows completely covered in snow. And another sent just after midnight on Christmas Eve saw Taylor roll down her windows to show a van also stranded in the snow nearby.
Brown Steele referred to her daughter as a "giving person who helped anybody in need," and she is making arrangements for her body to be bought back to Charlotte, North Carolina.
Our thoughts remain with everyone affected by this tragedy.
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