HOBOKEN — Representatives of Smart Start Academy in Hoboken held a vigil Thursday night for Fabiola de Kroon, 34, who passed away when she was hit by debris during last Thursday morning’s train crash in Hoboken. De Kroon, a young Hoboken mom, dropped her 18-month-old daughter off at the day care on Ninth Street next to the light rail station, then headed to the Hoboken train terminal to go to work in New York.
While she was walking on the platform, a train coming from the suburbs slammed into the terminal, sending debris raining down. De Kroon was killed and more than 100 people were injured.
This week, the federal government released more details about their investigation of the accident. They removed the train from the tracks on Thursday to further study it. Representatives also said evidence suggests the train had sped up half a minute before entering the terminal, from 8 miles per hour to 21 miles per hour.
There are many unanswered questions in the crash. Engineer Thomas Gallagher, 48, said he remembered the train going 10 m.p.h., the speed limit, but did not remember the impact.
At Thursday night’s vigil, Smart Start Academy Office Administrator Sapphire Lopez talked about the love de Kroon and her daughter Julia had for each other.
“If I could draw, I would show the world the glow on Julia’s face every time she saw her mom,” she said.
The Academy has set up two Gofundme fundraisers to raise money for a scholarship for Julia and for orphanages in Brazil. Lopez said that the family was still determining how to allocate the money, but because they know that Julia will grow up without her mother, they’d like to help children who have no parents.
Husband Daan and Julia de Kroon were not there, as they were in Fabiola’s native Brazil with family.
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