29-year-old mom of 5 dies in fall from CA party bus. ‘She was dancing and she fell’

A woman who died after falling from a party bus onto a California highway was a 29-year-old mother of five, her family said.

She died after being run over by another vehicle after falling off the party bus at 2:55 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 29, on northbound Highway 101, McClatchy News reported.

Heather Garcia, who would have turned 30 on Monday, Jan. 31, was celebrating her birthday and a relative’s birthday on the bus, her family told KCBS.

“They went out, got the party bus and based on the information I got, she was dancing and she fell … and that was it,” Juan Garcia, her brother, told the station.

It’s not known how or why the door to the bus opened.

“It’s just something that is a nightmare ... that doesn’t happen. It should not happen,” Rafael Corral, her husband, told KABC.

“The way she went, it wasn’t very happy for anybody to see. And that hurts me,” Miguel Garcia, her father, told KCBS.

A GoFundMe account has been established for Garcia’s family. She had five children ages 1 to 10.

“I feel lost without her,” Corral wrote. “We had so many plans and now I am left with so many questions and an extremely broken heart.”

“She was a great soul, and she was somebody that you can count on,” her sister, Jellue Jaramillo, told KABC. “A great mother ... definitely a great sister.”

California Highway Patrol officers ask that anyone with information on the incident call 323-343-0732.

This story was originally published January 31, 2022 at 10:42 AM with the headline "29-year-old mom of 5 dies in fall from CA party bus. ‘She was dancing and she fell’."