A 16-year-old Australian girl who was on her way to see her idol never made it.
Instead, Mieka Pokarier died Thursday as she and her mother and younger sister were on the final leg of an odyssey to see Taylor Swift perform in Melbourne and Sydney as part of her Eras Tour, according to CNN.
The SUV in which they were riding collided with a semi-trailer, killing Mieka and putting her 10-year-old sister Freya into a hospital in critical condition. Her mother, Kim Litchfield, emerged from the wreck with cuts and bruises.
According to Australia’s Daily Telegraph, Mieka had her Taylor Swift playlist going on her iPad as she sat in the front passenger’s seat when the crash took place.
“When we opened the iPad, it was heartbreaking,” Karleigh Fox, Mieka’s godmother, said, according to Australia’s 9News.
The last thing 16-year-old Mieka Pokarier had open on her iPad before she died was a Taylor Swift playlist she had spent hours creating. Mieka, her sister and her mum were on a dream road trip to see Swift concerts in two states when they crashed. > https://t.co/4xngSBMBJl pic.twitter.com/M0paGG9GgH
— Herald Sun (@theheraldsun) February 17, 2024
The family had reached Dubbo, 30 kilometers away from the end of a 17-hour drive, when the crash took place, the Telegraph reported.
Freya Pokarier, who was sitting in the back seat, was taken to Westmead Hospital where she is in a coma with brain injuries and also suffered a damaged pelvis and broken leg.
Could this have been avoided?
Their mother, who was driving, was taken to Dubbo Hospital with minor injuries.
“It should have been a dream road trip,” Fox said.
“They had been talking about this since before they got the tickets. They spent eight hours refreshing their screens hoping to score tickets and were over the moon to land tickets at both Melbourne and Sydney venues,” she said.
Fox said Swift was the dominant theme in Mieka’s life, noting she named her cat Mr. Perfectly Fine, after a Swift song.
With Freya in a coma, “We are playing her favorite Taylor Swift album ‘1989 Taylor’s Version’ on repeat in her room and telling her about the merch we are seeing people buying on line,” Fox wrote in a GoFundMe set up for the family.
Taylor Swift: Swiftie Mieka Pokarier’s final days revealed before she was killed in crash in Dubbo, NSW https://t.co/rbZf8gloBJ
— World News (@worldnewstweet_) February 18, 2024
“We are keeping our girl in an induced coma for a few more days in order to give her body a chance to stay still and hopefully recover as much as possible,” she wrote.
“The real work will begin of course when she is conscious and we will then see a whole lot of anxiety and distress from her and potential carer burnout for Mama, as that’s the person our girl is going to want the most,” she wrote.
The family is staying at the Ronald McDonald House because the crash took place 500 miles from the family’s home.
