It had only been a week since the start of the Fall 2016-2017 academic semester at UNC Wilmington, before tragedy would strike the Seahawk community in a dismal reminder of the dangers of driving on the highways of America.

Last week, UNCW released a statement regarding the death and burial of Liz Esbeidy Mandujano, 30, of Bladenboro, N.C., who was enrolled in the RN to BS nursing pipeline, an online program offered by UNCW for working health professionals seeking their four-year degree.

The burial of Mandujano and her 6-year-old daughter, Alyssa Lizeidy Mandujano, at the Memorial Gardens in Elizabethtown, N.C., was held on Sept. 3, and stems from a four-vehicle crash on U.S. 701 between Elizabethtown and White Lake, N.C., on Aug. 27, when their 2012 Honda SUV was hit head on by 64-year-old Kenneth Haselden, of South Carolina, according to collision reports obtained by The Seahawk from the N.C. Department of Public Safety. 

Haselden was travelling southbound in his 2007 Dodge pickup truck when he rear-ended another driver, Melissa Coffin Melvin, 50, of Elizabethtown, N.C., who had slowed down for traffic around 3:44 p.m., according to documents. 

The force of the impact sent both vehicles over the center lane into oncoming traffic heading northbound — resulting in two more vehicle collisions. Melvin’s 2006 Chevy SUV sideswiped a 2006 Dodge van driven by Francie Hunter, 68, of Garland, N.C., while Haselden’s truck hit Mandujano’s Honda with her three children inside. 

Mandujano died at the scene from injuries she suffered in the crash. Alyssa was ejected from the SUV, due to not being properly restrained — she would eventually succumb to her injuries.

Jinely Mandujano, 11, was not ejected from the vehicle, however, she was not properly restrained either and was subsequently airlifted to Duke hospital. 1-year-old Josue Mandujano was in a car seat and not seriously injured, according to WECT6, an NBC News affiliate. 

Haselden has been charged with failure to reduce speed, driving while impaired and two counts of misdemeanor death by motor vehicle, according to the collision reports. Haselden posted a $50,000 secured bond, according to BladenOnline.com, a news website for Bladen County.

Haselden is scheduled to appear in Bladen County’s criminal court on Oct. 24, according to the N.C. court system calendar. 

The Seahawk attempted to reach Haselden for comment, but no response was returned. 

In the U.S., 119,100 Americans were killed in crashes involving a drunk driver between 2003 and 2012 — 4,102 drivers were from North Carolina, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

More recent statistics show that 9,967 people were killed in drunk driving crashes in 2014, according to a 2015 report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and that of the 1,070 children between the ages of zero and 14-years-old that were killed in 2014 in traffic accidents, 209 or 19 percent of those killed involved an alcohol-impaired driver. 

Additionally, in 2013, 10,076 people were killed in drunk driving crashes, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. To put this into perspective, that’s one person being killed every 53 minutes. Still, perhaps the most startling statistic comes from a 2012 Federal Bureau of Investigation report, which found that each day, people drive drunk almost 300,000 times, but fewer than 4,000 are arrested. 

Yet, despite the statistics and the pending court date for Haselden, the Mandujano family now has to contend with the financial burden that comes from burying a wife and a daughter that will never see the age of 10. 

Today, the average price of a traditional American funeral costs between $7,000 to $10,000 dollars, according to parting.com, a website that provides funeral resources to families. To offset these costs, Pam Davis Taylor, 54, of Elizabethtown, N.C., a total stranger to the Mandujano family, started a Go Fund Me campaign with the goal of raising $10,000 dollars to give to Erasto Mandujano, Liz’s husband. 

“The crash happened about two miles from where I work,” Taylor told The Seahawk by phone. “Some people I work with came in on Monday talking about it, telling me about the mother and the 6-year-old that was killed by the drunk driver and I just felt I needed to help them out.” 

Taylor, who works at Vineyard Golf at White Lake, says that she’s never started a Go Fund Me campaign before, but felt compelled to help the Mandujano family. 

“So many things happened that caused that wreck, especially the drunk driver, but I just wanted to help out,” Taylor said, “I didn’t know anything about this family, I just felt led to help them.” 

Taylor started the campaign on Sept. 1, and has collected $2,910 as of Sept. 12. 

The web page is riddled with encouraging messages from donors — some named, others anonymous — giving anywhere between $5 to $500. One message from Sept. 8 says, “I am on faculty at UNCW School of Nursing and am so very sorry that you lost your beautiful family members.” 

The message is from Dr. Diane Pastor, an associate professor at UNCW’s School of Nursing, who told The Seahawk by phone that she learned about the accident from an email that the director of the school of nursing sent out to faculty members. 

“I didn’t know her, but I was so upset when I read the news that I Googled her name and the Go Fund Me site came up and I went and looked and decided that I would send something personally,” Pastor said, “I wanted the family to know that somebody from the school of nursing was donating and helping their cause.” 

“It just broke my heart to see a young mom — I have a daughter who’s a young mom — to see one of our own students, and to see that an impaired driver caused this, those are all issues close to my heart,” Pastor said. “I think there’s very few people who can actually say their family hasn’t been impacted in some way by addiction.”

If you would like to contribute to the Mandujano family’s Go Fund Me campaign, go to www.https://www.gofundme.com/2mqszpw