
Yirat Ifergan and her daughter headed to the town of Mitzpeh Ramon in Israel's south on Sunday for a vacation day. It was a trip from which they were not destined to return. Yirat's car collided with another near the Ramon penitentiary. Yirat was pronounced dead at the scene, and her four-month-old daughter Heirut was pronounced dead a short time later in hospital.
"They thought they were going to have a day of adventure and enjoyment," says Dorit Fixler, Yirat's sister. "It ended in heartbreak for all of us."
Yirat's mother Faigi recollects the phone call from the hospital:
"They asked me if I was Faigi, and I said yes. Then they asked if I had a daughter named Yirat, and again I said yes, and then I started to ask 'Wait, has something happened to her? Has there been an accident?' and they said yes," she says, on the verge of tears.
Eitan, Yirat's eight-year-old son, survived the crash and has been reunited with his family, but there is yet another difficulty that is still ahead of the family - his father suffers from a degenerative muscle disease, and Yirat was considered the mainstay of the house.
"I never thought I would need to raise my grandchild," weeps Faigi.
The circumstances of the collision are still under investigation, but the family has issued a statement pleading with drivers to take more care on the roads.
"A moment of inattention, a glance at a phone, a flash of impatience with another driver, could destroy a family," says Tzvika Fixler, Yirat's brother-in-law. "I implore everyone to make sure that we are the last family to be struck by such a disaster."