Authorities identified the woman who died Friday as Jesy Garcia, a 49-year-old Newark resident. Watch video
NEWARK -- Irma Garcia said she had a "feeling in her stomach" about her 49-year-old mother, Jesy, after she woke up Friday and saw the news of a fatal NJ Transit bus crash in downtown Newark.
"I saw the accident [on the news] in the morning," the 29-year-old Garcia said. "I didn't really know what route or what bus she was taking, but I didn't really pay no mind."
"I just had a feeling in my stomach," Garcia added. "I kept thinking about my mother. I wasn't well since I woke up."
At 6 p.m. that night, about 12 hours after a NJ Transit bus T-boned another bus at Raymond Boulevard and Broad Street, her worst fears were confirmed when investigators showed up at her Elizabeth home and broke the awful news.
Her mom, Jesy Garcia, a passenger on the bus, had died at University Hospital.
The factory worker was identified by her cellphone and the Babies'R'Us membership card that she used to buy gifts for her grandchildren, Garcia said.
"I gave her one because she always buys toys for my kids," Irma Garcia said. "She had that one on her keychain."
Her mother, Jesy Garcia, had just moved out of the house in Elizabeth, where she lived with her daughter, son-in-law William Mendez and the couple's two children. She was forced to moved in with her family earlier this year after her apartment burned down. Her previous second-floor apartment was a few blocks from her job, allowing her to walk to work each day.
"These kids meant the world to her," Mendez said. "She spoiled the hell out of them."
Like his wife, Mendez also had a gut-churning feeling that things weren't right.
"I kept looking at the bus and it didn't feel right," said Mendez, who works as a tow truck driver and had also been watching the news throughout the day.
Bus wreck was 'total chaos' witnesses say
Jesy Garcia had moved back to her native Newark last month into an apartment on Lincoln Park. She was on her morning commute to the 6th Ward, which was only a short ride on a No. 13 bus, on her way to the factory where she was an assembly line leader.
Garcia said her mother never minded taking the bus. She'd take two to Newark when she lived in Elizabeth, one of which was a No. 13, Garcia said. Her mother always used public transportation because she never had a car, Garcia said. "She just went to work, trying to save up to just get better in life," she said.
Jesy Garcia had been saving to take her two grandchildren, an 11-year-old boy and 3-year-old girl, to Puerto Rico to visit their other grandmother. "She really wanted to do that," Garcia said. "Everything was about her family."
Mendez said his mother, Rosaura Santiago, and his mother-in-law grew close when their granddaughter was born and stayed in touch online.
"My mother's 60 years old and they were always Facetiming with each other and using SnapChat," Mendez said. "I told my brother, he had to find a way to tell her because she's going to be waiting for her call."
"We lost a lot in our family recently," Garcia said. "(Jesy Garcia's) mother four years ago, her aunt, her great aunt, like three years ago. This is just really hard, trying to stay together, the little bit of family we have."
Jesy Garcia was one of two fatalities from the bus accident.
The other was the a veteran bus driver, Joseph Barthelus, 70, of Union, whose bus was empty heading west on Raymond Boulevard. Seventeen others, who were on a No. 13 bus heading north on Broad Street at 6:05 a.m., were injured.
Nine people are still being treated at University Hospital in Newark a day after the accident, spokesman Thaddaeus Diggs told NJ Advance Media. One person is still critical and another is in serious condition, Diggs said.
The cause of the accident is still under investigation.
Officials have said they are examining the bus and other cameras near the intersection. They have not ruled out that Barthelus had suffered a medical emergency.
Garcia and Mendez have not scheduled services yet. They said they have been in contact with a lawyer to set up a charity to help pay for the funeral expenses. Garcia said her brother Larry Alvarez, who lives in Florida with his wife, Marisa, is making arrangements to come back to New Jersey for his mother's funeral.
Craig McCarthy may be reached at CMcCarthy@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @createcraig. Find NJ.com on Facebook.