Mother Of Five Dies After Falling From Party Bus While Dancing During Birthday Celebration

A Los Angeles mother-of-five, who was just two days away from her 30th birthday, died Saturday, Jan. 30, after she tripped and fell off a party bus onto a busy freeway, where she was fatally struck by an oncoming car, authorities said.

Heather Garcia and her relatives were traveling in a party bus, celebrating her niece’s birthday, at around 3 am on Saturday, when she tripped while dancing and fell out of the bus, relatives told ABC 7.

The incident happened at the northbound 101 Freeway and Los Angeles Street in downtown LA, reports said.

"What I thought would be a fun night out for her turned into a tragic ending for us. She was the life of the party always up for a good time. She had a huge heart always lending a hand to anyone who needed it. She was a great mom always taking care of our children," her husband, Rafael Corral, wrote in a GoFundMe.

"She loved our kids and she lived to take care of us. She was my best friend, my rock, she kept it together for me and our kids. I feel lost without her. We had so many plans and now I am left with so many questions and an extremely broken heart. Our children will never see their mother again and I do not know how I am going to continue but I know she will always be with us."

The mother of five would have turned 30 years old on Monday.

"She was a great soul, and she was somebody that you can count on," said Garcia's sister, Jellue Jaramillo. "A great mother ... definitely a great sister."

Garcia’s relatives said she was dancing when she tripped and fell back on the door which opened and sent her out onto the freeway.

"I don’t know how the door opened. Nobody knows how the door opened," Garcia's brother, Juan Garcia, told KCBS. "The door shouldn’t have opened up,"

Investigators said that's when she was hit by a moving vehicle. The driver of that vehicle stayed at the scene and cooperated with authorities, according to reports.

Garcia leaves behind her US Army veteran husband, and their five children, ages one, five, six, eight, and 10 years old.

"You expect when you pay for a service so that you don't drink and drive or do anything illegal ... you get there, somebody takes you there safe, and you're going to get back home safe because that's what you paid the service for," said Corral.

"I've seen some crazy, horrific things in Iraq, and to see it happen to your family... it shouldn't have happened," Corral said.