Mother headed home from store in ICU after Christmas Eve crash

GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — A Lawrenceville woman is fighting for her life after being hit by a car on her way home from a grocery store.

Eunice Johnson was running a quick errand to pick up a few things for Christmas dinner when another car swerved across Johnson Road and hit her car. The impact was so great, it split the other car in half. Both people inside that car, driver Saad Varney, 34, and passenger Dionte Jordan, died. Johnson was rushed to a hospital.

Channel 2 Gwinnett County bureau chief Tony Thomas spoke with Johnson's family about the crash and her recovery.

“A lot of decisions we have to make but she's here and that's the main part.,” said Johnson’s sister, Andrea Johnson.

Johnson’s daughter Tiffany was on her way to her mom’s house when she saw the crash and recognized her mom’s car.

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“When I rolled up I saw a black Mercedes Benz and I immediately called Mom because that's what she drove and she didn't answer,” Tiffany Johnson said. “I didn’t know what I was walking into and it was her.”

She says she was on the scene before the ambulance even arrived.

“A total miracle. If she hadn’t been driving that Benz, she wouldn’t be here,” Tiffany Johnson said.

She said her mom, who is the backbone of their family, was just minutes from home when the crash happened.

“She was going home. She was leaving the grocery store to get Christmas dinner. She was less than five minutes from home,” she said.

The family says Eunice Johnson is sedated and can't talk. She suffered several broken bones.

“She was a go-getter. She never sat still. This is going to kill her. Thank God she is alive and can heal and go back and get it,” Tiffany Johnson said.

Johnson’s family said they are keeping the families of the two people killed in the crash in their prayers.

“I’m broken for them for one. The decision we have to make on Eunice's part are nowhere near the decisions their parents or family have to make or are planning on today,” Andrea Johnson said.

The family also had a warning for anyone else venturing out on roads the rest of this holiday season.

“I think the news that we have is that (the people in the other car) were arguing. I’m pretty sure their argument was nowhere near all this. Just be more attentive on the road,” Andrea Johnson said. “Know that we aren't just out there alone. There's other people that we have to look out for, too, and be concerned about.”

Cox Media Group