‘It was a nice day until it wasn’t’: Cleveland mother reflects on losing her kids on I-90 last year

CLEVELAND — “It was a nice day until it wasn’t.”

It was April, 1, 2024. Leih Whalen’s 16-year-old daughter Iana and 9-year-old son Daeshon were in a car headed westbound on Interstate 90 in Cleveland when the vehicle ran out of gas.

Whalen says the driver had the hazard lights on. Despite this, they were rear-ended by a Kimble garbage truck. Iana McCrary and Daeshon Whalen were killed.

“I really didn’t know what was going on at first. I didn’t know it was this severe,” Whalen says nearly a year later. Upon learning of the news, she remembers repeatedly asking, “Are you sure? Are you sure?”

For the mother of three, time has stood still ever since.

“I never changed my calendar,” she admits. On the date reading April 1, 2024, the calendar reads, “DAY MY KIDS PASSED” and “WORST DAY.”

“I feel like I’ve been robbed of, like, all of everything I could have,” she told 3News Tuesday. “Forget material (things), forget all that. You can get all of that back. But I feel like I’ve been robbed of something that I can never, ever, ever get back.”

As the one-year anniversary approaches, Whalen has pictures, belongings, and mementos of her kids, and even flowers from the funeral. It brings her comfort, but she still cannot look at pictures of the mangled car.

There were four passengers: Iana and Daeshon were in the back seat, while the male driver is now paralyzed. Another teen girl was in the passenger seat and walked away with minimal injuries

Whalen spends all her spare time traveling and experiencing new things with her 14-year-old son, as well as Iana’s dog and Daeshon’s cat. She says her suffering is profound, and that the dog still waits for Iana to come home.

“There’s nothing more you can do than really just wake up every day and tell your kids you love them, because you really don’t know how your day is going to turn out.”

No criminal charges have ever been filed in connection with the crash.