Father of girl in day care crash: 'No way to explain what our family has lost'

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — The father of a 4-year-old girl who died tragically when a car crashed into her day care center in Orange County sat down for an emotional interview with Channel 9 on Friday.

Lily Quintus was killed Wednesday when a car that was involved in a hit-and-run smashed into the KinderCare on Goldenrod Road, killing her and injuring more than a dozen others.

Groveland firefighter Brian Quintus fought back tears as he described the pain he and his family are going through, especially Lily's 7-year-old brother.

Quintus said Lily's brother is trying to cope the best way he can, but he said the boy is still young and doesn't understand what happened.

"He's like, 'I don't have anyone to play with me,'" said Quintus. "That was his sister and they loved each other and they played with each other and now he doesn't have that anymore."

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Quintus said as a firefighter, he sees similar tragedies every day but it really hit home when it happened to his family.

"There's no way to explain what our family has lost because she is not going to be here anymore," he said.

Quintus said Lily's death has felt like a terrible nightmare from the time he got a frantic call from his wife letting him know what happened.

"Certain seconds you don't realize the amount of loss. You're just thinking this is a dream and this is not real and you're going to wake up and she is going to be fine," said Quintus. "Then, sometimes it hits you that she's not here anymore, and it hurts."

A fund set up by Quintus' fellow firefighters has raised more than $60,000 as of Friday evening. Quintus said he wasn't aware of the fund butsaid it doesn’t surprise him that his friends and co-workers took that extra step.

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"I'm so happy that everyone is trying to help," said Quintus. "It's great the community is rallying around us and trying to help in any way they can.  I really appreciate it. It's so expensive to do this process. I don’t know how anyone without the support of the community would be able to afford something like this, because it's outrageously expensive to bury your child.”

Quintus fought back tears, describing Lily as "beautiful and such a good kid... She was an extremely lovable child.”

Investigators said 28-year-old Robert Corchado struck another car, sending it into the KinderCare.  Corchado fled the scene but turned himself in on Thursday and was charged with leaving the scene of an accident involving death.

"There is something wrong with the people who could leave the scene of the accident in any way, shape or form," said Quintus. "In this case, there was a whole day care full of kids that were hit. There were a lot of kids in there.  A lot of kids were hurt, a lot of kids will probably be scared for the rest of their lives. I'm hoping right now he’s sitting in the cell with other guys and they’ll take care of things for me.”

WFTV