Driver, passenger of downtown DUI wreck recall fatal moment

Mark Robinson
Assistant News Editor
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EDITORS NOTE: This story recounts the fatal accident that occurred in downtown Richmond this week. Click here to read our original dispatch on the accident.

A Fat Tuesday feast at The Village Café left Gabrielle Atkins, Jan Garcia, Carolina Perez and Jackie Bifulk stuffed. As practicing Catholics, they planned to fast for Ash Wednesday.

The friends headed over to the Catholic Campus Ministry after the meal to hangout. When the Cathedral closed at midnight, Atkins volunteered to drive Bifulk to her apartment on the Southside. Garcia and Perez decided to ride along.

After dropping Bifulk off at home, Atkins took the Robert E. Lee Bridge back over the river. On the way, Garcia suggested they go downtown to see the lights, something the friends did often.

Atkins took the second street exit and drove south until she reached a red light at the corner of 2nd street and East Canal.

At 12:37 a.m., the light turned green. Atkins put the car in first gear and accelerated. Already in the intersection, she looked over her right shoulder and saw the white car coming. She tried to get out of the way, but couldn’t.

Virander “Vick” Chahal’s white Mazda collided with the Yaris on the back passenger side, right where Carolina Perez was sitting. The impact sent Atkins’ car spinning into a nearby building.

“When we were spinning, I could still see everything, but I couldn’t hear anything. It was just off. It was gone for a moment,” Atkins said.

She remembers the flash of blue lights and paramedics on the scene almost immediately. Atkins and Garcia called out to Perez, but she didn’t respond.

“I didn’t want to see her. I just knew she wasn’t responding, and I figured they were going to take care of it and she was going to be fine,” Atkins said.

The paramedics pulled Perez from the backseat first, then Garcia and Atkins from the front.

“From being pulled out of the car on the way to the ambulance, I was just praying,” said Garcia, a junior English major at VCU. He lost his father about 10 years ago. “I was just asking him to help us and watch over us, please take care of us.”

An eight-minute ride to MCV landed Garcia and Atkins in the trauma room. They were told Perez was in critical condition.

“I thought she would make it,” Garcia said.

The whiplash from the crash fractured a vertebrate in Garcia’s neck. Atkins suffered two broken ribs, a bruised lung, liver and kidney. Both are expected to make a full recovery.

Varinder “Vick” Chahal, the driver of the Mazada, is a VCU student. He was charged with felony manslaughter, driving under the influence and refusal to submit to blood and breath tests.

Perez died in the hospital. The 19-year-old sophomore was majoring in biology and minoring in chemistry and catholic studies at VCU.

Her funeral was held this past Saturday at St. Luke’s Catholic Church in Virginia Beach.

“She was always happy and wonderful and warm and forgiving,” Garcia said. “The best thing we could do for her now is just keep living as best as we can.”