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Parents of girl hurt in crash: 'I don't care what God you believe in. Just keep praying.'

Palm Beach Post - 7/28/2018

July 28--BOCA RATON

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Dylan, his head clearing, looked over to Farrah, across from him in his smashed SUV.

He reached for his cellphone and called the ice cream parlor where they had been headed. Farrah was scheduled to work a shift there. The parlor called Bobby, a coworker, who also was Farrah's boyfriend and Dylan's best friend. Bobby called Farrah's sister Madison. And Madison called her dad Ira.

"I was walking toward the door, (saying), 'No. This can't be. This can't be,'" Ira Fox recalled.

An off-duty Palm Beach County Sheriff's deputy who police said ran a stop sign had slammed his giant pickup into the car in which Farrah was riding. At Delray Medical Center, doctors told Fox his daughter had a traumatic injury. And was in a coma.

"Your world suddenly ceases," Fox, with his former wife Marla-Jo by his side, told The Palm Beach Post Friday afternoon at a downtown Boca Raton law office.

On July 15, Delray Beach police said, Michael D'Avanzo was traveling 40 mph in a 25 mph zone. He told officers he didn't see the stop sign at Northeast First Avenue and Northeast Third Street. His 2018 Chevrolet Silverado pickup struck the Chevrolet Tahoe carrying Fox, 18, and Dylan De Giuseppe, 20.

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De Giuseppe, who lives west of Boca Raton, was released from the hospital July 19. Six passengers were in the cab of D'Avanzo's pickup. The deputy and two others were treated at the crash site for minor injuries and two others were taken to Delray Medical for minor injuries and then released. Air bags had deployed and everyone wore safety belts, police said.

D'Avanzo, 25, joined PBSO in January 2017 and is a road-patrol deputy, the sheriff's office said. A spokeswoman said Wednesday he remains on active duty.

Farrah, who plans to be an aeronautics engineer, still is in a coma and on a ventilator. Her parents said she's shown some slight signs of improvement; her eyes have sporadically opened and she got past an infection.

"There may be permanent brain damage. We just don't know," Fox said. He said he has to believe she'll make a full recovery. He said he was told that would be measured in "months, if we're lucky." But, he said, "This is the kind of kid that, when she's able to wake up, and do physical therapy, if they tell her a year, it will be six months."

As for when Farrah might wake up, her father said he realizes "at the outside it could be never. But I'm not going to think that."

Fox lives in east Boca Raton. His former wife and his two children live with their mother in east Delray Beach. Madison, a year younger than Farrah, is a senior at West Boca High School, where both girls attended an academy.

Farrah just finished her freshman year at the University of Central Florida, where she got straight As, except for one B. Her dad said the teacher wouldn't budge, which made her "madder than a rattlesnake."

On the day of the crash, Ira Fox -- who works for an outfit that sells computers and other technical equipment -- had just finished getting a haircut at the Linton Boulevard shop where Marla-Jo works. He just had arrived home when he got the call from Madison that Farrah had been injured.

He had spoken to Farrah just a half hour before the crash, he said, and "I'm grateful that I was the last one to talk to her, but I was haunted by it," he said.

Within minutes, family and friends had begun showing up at the Delray Medical emergency room.

"They were coming out of the woodwork," Fox said.

Fox said he's convinced a number of factors -- perhaps coincidental, perhaps the result of spiritual intervention -- saved his daughter.

For one, both she and Dylan wore safety belts.

Farrah's boyfriend was working, and so Dylan offered to take her out for a bite and run her to work. Dylan's compact car was in the shop, and Dylan was too young to rent a car, so Dylan was driving his mother's big SUV.

And a doctor lived just houses away and had run out to help stabilize Farrah before paramedics arrived -- one day after he'd returned from a two-week vacation.

"Otherwise you'd be talking about two funerals," Fox said grimly.

Fox said he's more spiritual than religious, and he's been overwhelmed by the "unbelievable support of love and prayer," some of it from strangers, and coming from people of all faiths.

"I don't care what God they believe in," he said. "I'll take it all. Just keep praying."

Fox still refused to focus on the deputy, who was part of "an unfortunate accident of some improper decision-making," he said.

"All the anger in the world is not going to get Farrah well any time soon," he said. "There's no reason to expend energy on anger or anything else. Everything is prayer and positive thoughts."

The Foxes acknowledged they were being interviewed at the offices of a law firm he's retained and said litigation was possible. Attorney Jensen Grant said it was "very early" to start talking about that.

"We're two working stiffs." Marla-Jo said. "We pray that she gets into the right facility so she can get the help she needs."

Family and friends have set up a support webpage. And a money-raising webpage for the teen's medical expenses had, by Friday evening, raised about $18,000 toward the $100,000 goal.

"Farrah said to me that she's going to be written in the history books. And I believe she's going to do it," Marla-Jo said.

"I believe God has a bigger plan for her," Fox said. "And he's not going to let her go."

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(c)2018 The Palm Beach Post (West Palm Beach, Fla.)

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