Beloved ER nurse mowed down on SoCal highway after stopping to help DUI crash victim

A beloved Southern California ER nurse was killed after stopping to help at the scene of a DUI crash north of San Diego when another vehicle slammed into the wreckage and struck her.

Nereida Benitez, known as “Nedi” to friends and coworkers, had just finished an overnight shift at San Diego’s Sharp Memorial Hospital and was driving home to Temecula when she pulled over to assist after a crash on Interstate 15 near State Route 76, ABC10 reported.

The crash happened shortly after 4 a.m. Thursday on the southbound I-15.

According to the California Highway Patrol, a Toyota minivan had been rear-ended by a Honda CR-V driven by a 21-year-old man, sending the Honda into the median.

Benitez, 40, stopped to help, as did another passerby, 54-year-old Marine veteran Chad Tillman.

Authorities said Benitez and Tillman were standing on the driver’s side of the Honda when another vehicle collided with the CR-V.

Both were pronounced dead at the scene.

The driver involved in the initial collision, identified by CHP as 21-year-old Jake Lopez Lawrence, was booked on felony DUI and gross vehicular manslaughter charges at the Vista Detention Facility.

He was scheduled to be arraigned Thursday.

The loss has devastated Benitez’s colleagues at the hospital, where she began her nursing career nearly a year into the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Your heart sinking down to the pit of your stomach. That’s how I felt,” nursing manager Tania Jones told ABC10. “It’s been like a shock that one of us is gone, because we’ve become family.”

Jones said Benitez’s positive attitude was impossible to miss, even during the height of the pandemic.

“We could always tell, even though we had to wear masks … you could always tell her big, beautiful smile. So that is Nedi. Her beautiful smile and her way of just shining that positive light and energy to everybody,” the colleague added.

Just weeks before her death, Benitez shared exciting news with coworkers after securing her Air Force enlistment, putting her on track to achieve her longtime goal of becoming a flight nurse.

“She was excited and nervous at the same time. She was excited to have her dreams moving. She kept saying, ‘Thank you for believing in me and supporting me.’ I was so proud of her,” Jones said.

Benitez — a wife and mother — was passionate about her family and dedicated to helping others, making it unsurprising that she stopped to assist strangers on the side of the freeway, the colleague added.

“She’s a nurse, always caring and compassionate. That’s how we should remember Nedi. That’s how she would have wanted it,” she said.

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