CHARLOTTE, N.C.-- Family and friends of two nurses, run off the sidewalk by a distracted driver Sunday, are still struggling to understand what happened.
Police say Susan Karabulut and Lisa McTe were walking on Craig Avenue on a break from the nursing home where they work and they were hit by a car.
Karabulut died at the scene and McTe is still in critical condition.
The driver, Leah Ann Walton, is charged with involuntary manslaughter.
Police say she had marijuana and drug paraphernalia in the car when she hit the women, though she's not accused of driving while impaired.
Walton told police she was reaching for cigarettes in her purse when she swerved off the road.
"We've all done it. We've all reached over to get something, and kind like…she had to been going a lot faster," says Isabel Fabrizio, Susan Karabulut's mother.
Fabrizio has spent the last 24 hours trying to understand, trying to wrap her head around the wreck that killed her youngest child.
"All I gotta keep saying is hope that she knows that I loved her. That was my baby, and it shouldn't have been my baby," says Fabrizio.
Her 33-year-old daughter leaves an 11-year-old child behind.
In fact, her granddaughter had been with her in New York until Thursday when she flew her home.
"At least her daughter got to see her for a few days before this happened," says Fabrizio.
On Craig Avenue Monday, there was a memorial of sorts on the sidewalk where that car ran up on the curb. The administrator at the nursing home says it's been a tough day for everybody.
"She used to tell me, 'Mom, this one and that one,'" says Fabrizio.
Susan's mom says she loved her patients, and she loved her job. She doesn't know what to think about the woman who police say took her daughter’s life.
"It's just totally unbelievable that this happened to her," says Fabrizio.
Leah Walton is due in court Tuesday.
She's been ticketed before for speeding, but she's not a repeat offender in Mecklenburg County. She's never faced any charge this serious before.
