A Fort Worth family is mourning two weeks after losing a wife and mother to a drunk driver in a crash just down the road from their home.
The Elliott family spoke with FOX 4 just one day after Britni Elliott’s funeral.
Boat Club Road crash
The backstory:
The crash took place five minutes from their Fort Worth home on a road they take daily. A constant, devastating reminder of who was taken from them.
Both of Spencer Elliott’s arms are wrapped in casts. The Keller ISD teacher and coach also has facial fractures and broken teeth.
His 12-year-old daughter Allie, back home from a doctor’s appointment Tuesday, has a broken arm.
Spencer, his wife Briytni Elliott, and their middle child were on their way home from a late-night baseball tournament Sept. 14.
Britni was behind the wheel. Spencer was in the passenger seat focused on cutting sports film. And Allie was in the backseat.
Fort Worth police say a drunk driver traveling the wrong way down Boat Club Road hit the Elliott family’s Ford Expedition head-on.
‘Breath by breath and day by day’
What they’re saying:
“I put my laptop on top of the dashboard as we were driving home,” Spencer said. “I think I fell asleep. I don’t remember much. I just remember waking up in the hospital.”
That’s when Spencer was told his wife and partner of 14 years had been killed.
Britni was his biggest supporter, a mother of three, and director of nursing for JP’s Correctional Health at the Tarrant County Jail.
Support has been pouring in from the sports community across Tarrant County.
“Losing your best friend is heartbreaking,” Spencer said. “Then it went from heartbreak to worry, and I have all these kids to take care of.”
A role the oldest, 17-year-old Cooper Elliott, now shares, in a home where this Fort Worth family is forced to have difficult conversations about an unpredictable future.
“There is going to come a time where you have forgiveness in your heart and want to forgive the person who did this,” Spencer said. “And love him like Christ tells us to, but right now, it’s ok to feel angry and lost.”
“We have each other,” Spencer said. “Breath by breath and day by day.”
What’s next:
Spencer has multiple surgeries scheduled for this week.
As for the suspect in this case, he remains in the hospital. Fort Worth police are not naming him, because he hasn’t been formally charged due to his injuries.