Kamas family shaken by tragedy receives support from community

Kamas family shaken by tragedy receives support from community

(Utah Highway Patrol)


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KAMAS — Family and friends are pulling together to buoy up the family who in the wake of a tragic accident with a daughter also lost a mother.

Angela Fitzgerald, 38, was killed on impact after a man driving a Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck headed east crossed into the westbound lane on state Route 248 and hit the gray Chrysler Aspen she was driving.

Fitzgerald's daughter, Maddison, 9, was in the accident and taken to Primary Children's Hospital.

Maddison suffered another serious injury about a week before the accident, said Tom Moore, Fitzgerald's father. The girl's head was stepped on by a horse. She was taken to Primary Children's Hospital and released to recover at home on July 13.

"The first accident was catastrophic enough, and then seven days later you have another major accident," Moore said.

The horse stepped on the right side of the girl's head, and the car crash damaged the left side, he said. Maddison has also had surgery on her cheek bones, jaw and arms.

"She is actually doing remarkable," Moore said. "We can't really tell what's going on in that little head with all the trauma, but she smiles and she talks."

She was released from the hospital Tuesday and able to attend her mother's viewing that evening.


I just can't even explain how many people touched our lives through this tragedy. It is just absolutely amazing.

–Tom Moore


Funeral services for Fitzgerald will be 11 a.m. Wednesday at the Kamas LDS Stake Center, with interment at the Francis cemetery.

"I just can't even explain how many people touched our lives through this tragedy," Moore said. "It is just absolutely amazing."

With his business, Moore's Chevron and Towing, he has worked with the Utah Highway Patrol over the years. For the funeral, Moore said four officers will escort his daughter's body.

"The lieutenant told me that even though I don't wear the uniform I'm one of them," he said.

Bridget Watkins, vice president of marketing and sales with All West Communications, said Fitzgerald left the company to work at South Summit Elementary School so she would be able to spend more time with her children.

"She was just one of the most kind and giving people you would ever meet," Watkins said. "She just didn't know a stranger and would bend over backward and give you the shirt off her back."

The outpouring of love in the community has been overwhelming, she said.

"I don't even know a fraction of the things that are happening," Watkins said.

All West Communications established an Angie Fitzgerald Family Fund for the family and will match any donation up to $10,000. Donations can be made at any Zions Bank location or All West Communications office.

There will be a benefit barrel race for Maddison on Aug. 2 in Herriman and a silent auction for the family on Aug. 5 in Coalville at the Summit County Barrel Bash.

Neal Marchant, who took over Fitzgerald's job at All West Communications after she left, said the woman was positive, happy and always willing to help him.

"She really could blend in with any crowd," he said. "The roughest people of town and then like the sweetest people of town. She could blend in with any of them and have a casual conversation."

Marchant said there is some added tragedy because of Fitzgerald's emphasis on family. He said she adjusted her life to put her family first.

Now, it "seems as though the community wants to do everything they can to fill the void somehow," he said.

"There's certainly no amount of money that can replace what they've lost," Watkins said. "But hopefully it can at least help with some of the medical bills or just living expenses."

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