COLUMBUS, Ohio — Columbus resident Nicole Maynard had been looking forward to planning a wedding.
Instead, because of an alleged impaired driver, she is planning a funeral.
Her fiancé, David Ford, died on Monday night after a crash on Stelzer Road near East Fifth Avenue
The couple had been driving in Nicole’s new car when they broke down. While standing along the bridge on Stelzer Road, police said a pickup truck driver slammed into their car, throwing David into the street.
“I didn’t know he was hit at first and I was looking around like, 'Where did he go?' And I looked in the road and I seen his shoes and I go to the front and he is laying there,” Nicole said. “He just kept looking at me, looking back, kept moving his eyes back and forth.”
He was taken to Grant Medical Center where he later died.
The driver, identified as Jamico Florida, fled from the scene. Florida was arrested about half a mile away and is charged with aggravated vehicular homicide. Police said he was impaired by alcohol.
“I just hope people take this as a lesson don’t get behind the wheel drunk at all,” Nicole said. “We had a lot of stuff planned. He is amazing. He is incredible,” she said.
More than 500 people have died in the state of Ohio in the last year alone in crashes involving impaired drivers, according to data from the Ohio State Highway Patrol.
David had three daughters.
Nicole wants people to think of her fiancé and the life they could have had before they get behind the wheel intoxicated.
“He didn’t deserve this, at all,” she said.