Illinois bride Jana Miles-Burnett, 40, was beaming when she left the site of her wedding ceremony with her new husband, William Burnett, 31. The couple exchanged vows at a city park in Buckner, Ill., but this would be the last happy moment they would share together.
Minutes after the ceremony, the Burnetts' motorcycle crashed as they headed to their reception. State police said that their motorcycle came across a deer on the road, which led to the accident, according to The Southern Illinoisan.
Guests who followed the motorcycle and witnessed the incident quickly rushed to the scene. The newlyweds were taken to the Franklin Hospital in Benton, but the bride didn't make it. She was apparently thrown off the motorcycle during the accident, according to ABC 7 Chicago. The groom suffered minor injuries.
The couple had a whirlwind romance that led to the wedding only two months after they met through mutual friends. "There wasn't a time that I had seen her happier. If they were together, she was smiling," said Sarah Smillie, 22, the bride's daughter from a previous marriage, according to Yahoo.
Smillie described her mom's wedding ceremony as "light and full of love." "I've never been to a wedding where there was so much laughter. They were stumbling over each other's words because they were nervous, but they were laughing," she said.
Although Smillie has accepted that her mother died without suffering, she said her new stepfather "breaks down every hour or so" and her 14-year-old brother, Cody, is "not doing good."
"But it's been amazing how many people truly cared about her and are reaching out to help us at this time. It's amazing," Smillie said, according to Inside Edition.
Smillie's husband, Khole, has set up a GoFundMe page for Miles-Burnett's funeral costs. "Jana was my mother-in-law, a true inspiration, and a loving soul," he wrote on the page. "She accepted me into her family with open arms and constant giggling and laughter. In my two years of being a part of their family, not once did I witness Jana in a bad mood!"
Before her death, the bride was a 911 dispatcher with the Franklin County Sheriff's Office, according to her obituary.
