Young student nurse dies after being trapped in car for 18 hours during Buffalo blizzard

Student nurse Anndel Taylor is among the victims who died during the historic blizzard that impacted the Buffalo area of New York over the holiday weekend.

Buffalo blizzard claims life of Anndel Taylor

Taylor, 22, a native of Charlotte, NC, was traveling home from work in Buffalo when her car became stuck in the snow, her family told WSOC-TV.

Taylor’s family believes she was trapped inside her car for 18 hours before she died, per the report.

Taylor is one of at least 27 people in Buffalo that died as a result of the storm. At least 50 people have died nationwide.

Emergency responders never showed up

Taylor had called 911 but they never came.

New York’s Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz told PEOPLE some people died as of a result of emergency responders who experienced storm-related delays while trying to reach those who were stranded amid frigid temperatures.

During the ordeal, Taylor sent horrifying videos to her family saying she was “scared”, showing how she was trapped inside her car.

One just before 4:15 p.m. Friday showing her windows completely covered in snow. Then just after midnight Christmas Eve, she sent a final one in which she rolled down her ice-covered window to show a nearby van also stuck in the blinding blizzard with its emergency lights on.

Wanda Brown Steele, Taylor’s mother, told the outlet that her daughter’s final message to her sisters said she intended to walk home after first getting some sleep in her car.

She was recovered hours later

After not hearing from her, her family began notifying loved ones in Buffalo to help find Taylor. Taylor had lived in Buffalo with her father, who’s on dialysis and who she helped take of.

One family friend saw her car, but initially assumed nobody could still be inside, Taylor’s mom told the New York Post.

“The third time he went out there, he bust the window and found her in the car,” she said, saying her body was found around 24 hours after she was first known to have been trapped.

How Anndel Taylor died

Taylor’s mom believes she died of carbon monoxide poisoning. “The car was running, and the snow was still coming, so it blocked the pipes, the exhaust pipe,” Steele said, per WSOC-TV’s report.

“After the car cut off,” she added, “that’s when she iced up.”

“I think she went peacefully,” her mom told The New York Post.

“She was laying back — she had her arms crossed and her foot up on the dashboard like she was peacefully asleep,” she said.

But even after Taylor’s body was found, “the police didn’t get there until late Christmas Day afternoon” — leaving her body in the car for another 24 hours, her mom claimed.

A volunteer from a group called The Buffalo Blizzard went and helped. She told Taylor’s mother “she was not going to leave my baby out there by herself even if she had to sit there all night,” Brown Steele said.

At one point, the volunteer FaceTimed Taylor’s family — and Brown Steele said: “I saw my baby lying there — she was iced. She was an icicle.”

The unnamed volunteer then helped some of Taylor’s relatives move the body to her car to finally take her to a hospital, the mom said.

Her grieving mother said that even given the historic severity of the storm, she cannot understand how help did not arrive in time.

“That’s a state, that’s a city, that has this going on all the time — why [weren’t] they prepared?” she asked. “My baby sat out there from Friday to Christmas.”

The tragedy came before Taylor’s 23rd birthday on Jan. 13 — and while she “still [had] presents under the tree” for Christmas, sister Shawnequa Brown said.

Bringing her back to Charlotte

The family is trying to bring her body back to Charlotte. As of Wednesday afternoon, a GoFundMe fundraiser has raised nearly $34,000, well over the $12,000 target.