WEBER COUNTY, Utah — "Nobody was a stranger to her.”
That’s how loved ones of Jenna Cunningham describe the woman who died in an early morning Weber Canyon accident just one week ago.
The fatal accident happened near milepost 91 as Cunningham, who wasn't from Utah, stepped out of her own vehicle to help another driver in trouble. She then fell to her death after crossing over a barrier on I-84.
Cunningham's family is now working to get her body back home to Raleigh, North Carolina, in what's been a heartbreaking journey.
“There was nobody in the world she wouldn't help," said Jenna's boyfriend, Joby Arnette. "That girl poured from an empty cup. Yeah, she had a heart of gold.”
Last Friday seemed like an average morning for Cunningham and Arnette, who Joby said did everything together. They were doing deliveries for their joint business when Jenna saw a crashed car on the side of the road and pulled over.
“She said, 'I'm gonna go see if everybody's okay,'" Arnette described. "And she grabbed her little first aid kit. Woman kept first aid kits everywhere. She jumped out, turned around, said, 'Love you!' I said, 'I'm coming. I love you, too.”
Little did Arnette know that those were the last words the couple was ever going to exchange. Jenna saw another car coming toward her with locked brakes and jumped over the barrier to avoid getting hit.
“By the time I got out of the truck, she already did that. I walked around for like 5-10 minutes, wondering where the hell she went. I ended up picking up a piece of trash and throwing it over the rail. And it wasn't until I didn't see it hit the ground that I realized that it was a hole there,” Arnette said.
That’s when his nightmare became a reality.
“Got my flashlight shined down there, and that's when I found her," he said. "She was down there. By the time I got there, she was, I mean, she was already gone. I think she died soon as she hit the ground."
It was a road trip that was not supposed to end where it did.
“On the way back, we were going to stop by and see Mount Rushmore and Yellowstone and all that good stuff," Arnette shared. "And we planned it. We had so much plans. Yeah, it just sucks that everything just stopped all of a sudden.”
Cunningham shared two kids with her ex-husband, Max Guerra.
“After the whole shock that we got divorced, we became best friends," Guerra said Friday. "Unfortunately, there’s nobody to call now to bounce off the punishments for the boys, because it's rough.”
Guerra says they are working to get Jenna back home for a funeral, and a GoFundMe page has been set up to help with that journey.
“When you have to get two funeral homes, one in Utah to pick up the body and balm the body, prep the body, transfer the body, fly the body, receive the body, a new funeral home, then the cost incurred with that, it just kind of like keeps adding up," he said.
For now, the family is leaning on their memories of Jenna as they walk through their grieving journey.
“I can't fully grieve until my boys are healed. You know it's, yeah, it’s a little rough,” Guerra said.
“It’s weird waking up by myself," added Arnette. "And it’s weird going to sleep by myself. I mean, that's hard."
