Matthews Family Wants Guard Rail at Curve where 7-year-old Girl Died

MATTHEWS, NC – The father of a seven-year-old girl who died in a car crash wants changes on a busy roadway.

He says a guard rail could have saved his daughter’s life.

“My daughter was full of life. She had bright blue eyes.. she was creative. She wanted to be an artist,” explains dad Ali Chaudhary.

He says the pain is still unbearable.

“I mean I can’t really put into words how I’ve felt the past two months. My emotions, they’re high and low,” he says.

His daughter, 7-year-old daughter Lyla died June 30th after the accident at a curve on Sam Newell Road near the intersection with Margaret Wallace Road.

The little girl’s grandfather was driving. He lost control and the car slipped off the road, falling down an embankment.

Lyla’s cousin was critically injured and just got out of the hospital a week and a half ago.

Chaudhary says maybe things would have been different if there was a guard rail.

“The car wouldn’t have gone off the embankment. It would have stayed right there on the road. She could have potentially still been alive if a guard rail was in place there,” he says.

“We understand that the family has suffered a great tragedy,” says Jen Thompson, with NCDOT.

Thompson says the department conducted an investigation after the accident and decided to pursue a project to install a guard rail.

But it will take time and money.

Once the request is submitted, it will compete with other projects across the state.

Thompson says if approved it would still take a year to 18 months before a guard rail could be in place.

“It’s got a slope, so we need to acquire some additional land out there to kind of widen the road a little bit so that the guardrail will be supported and stay in place out there,” she says.

Chaudhary and others pled their case in front of Matthews Town Council Monday night.

He says any expense is worth it, if it means it could save lives.

“We’re just trying to get by day-by-day and channel our grief into something that could potentially help someone else,” Chaudhary says.