‘Their dreams are nothing now’
For Ghomer Dulay, the morning of August 5 had been full of “laughing and joking” and cooking together with his children, enjoying each other’s company after eight years living apart.
A few months earlier, Dulay had flown to the Philippines to bring them to New Zealand for a better life.
So when Christine Dulay, 22, Khatricia Dulay, 19, and Ian Dulay, 17, wanted to see the snow, he and his wife Virginita Torregosa decided to take them.
“It’s their first time here and . . . I want to make them happy.”
About 1.30pm that day, they left their home in Christchurch to head to Mt Hutt. Just over an hour later, Dulay was driving along Rakaia Terrace Rd when he saw what he thought was a rabbit running across the road.
“That’s why I tried to brake and now sliding the car and zig-zag,” he said. “I lost control.”
Dulay blacked out and his next memory was waking up at the crash scene.
“My kids, my partner were yelling and crying. Me also.”
He called 111 and told the operator, “I need help because the car crashed”.
He then pulled his wife and eldest child from the wreckage. He was unable to get his other two children out.
It was not until later that evening that police told him they had died. His oldest child was critically injured, as was his wife.
“It’s so sad when I got that news, I was crying,” he said. “I have two kids gone.”
He said he wanted to tell his children he was “sorry” for what happened.
“I don’t want this to happen . . . they’re my blood.”
His son Ian was studying while daughters Christine and Khatricia and his wife Virginita were caregivers.
“Their dreams are nothing now, and also my dreams to give them a big future here.
“I want them to be happy, that’s why all their life I just follow them. ‘Pa, let’s go there, I want to see the snow, Pa let’s go there, I want to visit this’.”
The children’s mother, Gina Dulay, spoke to the Herald from the Philippines after the crash last year, with a relative helping to translate.
She last saw her children on May 25 when they left with their father for a new life in New Zealand.
“They migrate for good so they will have a better future.”
She spoke to the family the day before the crash. The children were “very happy” with their new lives, and had spent some time at the mall that day, she said.
What had happened to them was “devastating”, the relative said.
The children were “so kind, lovable, jolly and generous”.
“She’s so very, very sad when she heard the news and also said that she can’t live without her children.”