The 16-year-old who died while travelling to the Taylor Swift concert in Melbourne has been identified as Mieka Pokarier. Mieka and her family were travelling down from the Gold Coast to see the singer in Melbourne was involved a tragic car crash, leaving one daughter dead and another in a coma.
The girls’ mother and her two daughters are confirmed to have been travelling to see Swift’s Eras Tour in Melbourne and Sydney, when they were struck by another vehicle while on Dunedoo Road in Ballimore, near Dubbo.
Police and emergency services confirmed that the 16-year-old daughter died at the scene of the crash.
Her 10-year-old sister was in a critical condition and flown to Sydney Westmead Hospital.
“We are keeping our girl in an induced coma for a few more days in order to give her body a chance to stay still and hopefully recover as much as possible,” grandmother Karleigh Fox said per The Age.
“We are playing her favourite Taylor Swift album, 1989 (Taylor’s Version), on repeat in her room and telling her about the merch we are seeing people buying online.”
The mother was treated in Dubbo Hospital with minor injuries, as was the driver of the other vehicle.
The devastating incident happened on Thursday around 6pm, on the eve of the first night of Swift’s Eras Tour in Australia.
The journey was supposed to be the “trip of a lifetime” according to the girls’ godmother.
In a gut-wrenching statement, Fox has shared words that “today is Saturday, it’s 4am and I can’t sleep”.
“On Wednesday I had picked up Miss 16 from work and asked her who her favourite concert so far she’d been to and she said ‘Gracie Abrams’. I told her I’d check her out.
Fox shared that the girls’ father and big sister also flew to Sydney.
“This morning we see Miss Ten. She’s in a medically induced coma. Her papa and other big sister have been at her bedside flying down from the Gold Coast as soon as they could.”
The statement finishes with Fox’s poignant advice to “Hold your loved ones a little longer, look them in the eyes and tell them how beautiful they are to you. Or at least send the damn text.”
A fundraiser set up to assist the family has now garnered over $27,000 in donations.
[Image credit: Nine News]
