Two young Vancouver couples among dead in Lapu Lapu Day tragedy
A weekend outing for two Metro Vancouver couples and their family members ended in tragedy at the Lapu Lapu Day festival in Vancouver on Saturday.
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Jendhel May Sico was with her partner, Blaine Redlac, Blaine's best friend, Jordan Mazzotti, and Mazzotti's fiancée, Glitza Samper, at the festival celebrating Filipino culture near Fraser Street and East 41st Avenue when, just after 8 p.m., a black SUV drove into the crowd, killing 11 and injuring dozens.
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Redlac was planning to propose, but is now lying injured in a hospital bed, devastated about Sico's death. 'He loved her to the moon and back. We got robbed of celebrating them as being married.'
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Sico, who was in her mid-20s, was a good aunt to her three kids, Gillard said. She worked at a lumber distributor company in Metro Vancouver. Sico and Redlac lived in Port Coquitlam but were planning to move back to Surrey.
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On Saturday, at the festival, it was Mazzotti who first knew something was wrong. He saw or heard the SUV as it ripped down the street and moved just in time to avoid a fatal hit.
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'He grabbed Blaine, he could reach him, he saved him but he couldn't save his own fiancée,' Gillard said of Samper, through tears. The couple had just recently got engaged.
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'These were the kind of women you want to be in your family,' she said. 'They were just the nicest people, the sweetest, the most caring. Our world is less beautiful today because the two of them aren't in it.'
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The damage to the extended Sico family was also immense. Sico's cousin AJ Sico remains in hospital fighting for his life.
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An online fundraiser said AJ has 'devastating injuries' including broken legs, a lacerated liver, internal bleeding near a major artery, and brain swelling and is currently on dialysis.
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Sico's family is trying to raise funds for her wake and funeral services.
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Her sister Maydhel described Sico, who was known to family as May, as a kind and beautiful soul.
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