JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Family members and friends gathered Sunday afternoon to remember a woman killed in a crash last month in Nassau County.
Mellisa Nault, 38, of Callahan, was fatally struck by a car on Feb. 27 after she got out of her vehicle to help another driver who hit and killed two horses on U.S. 301 near Janes Lane, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
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Her celebration of life was at 2:30 p.m. Sunday at Dinsmore Baptist Church in Jacksonville.
Instead of flowers, the family asked that people make donations to the church her name. The donations will be used to help fund summer camp for children.
A GoFundMe account has also been established to help the family.
According to the Highway Patrol report, a Toyota 4Runner was traveling south on U.S. 301 about 6:45 p.m. Feb. 27 when it hit two horses standing in the southbound lanes of the highway. The horses died from their injuries.
Nault was driving her Hyundai Genesis behind the Toyota and saw the crash. She stopped to help, got out of her car and started to walk over to the other driver.
But at the same moment, troopers said, a red Kia Forte that was also headed south on U.S. 301 hit one of the horses lying in the roadway, flipping the Kia, which hit Nault and her Hyundai. A 15-year-old girl was still inside the Hyundai when it was hit, and she survived.
According to Nault’s husband, Robert, the 15-year-old was their daughter. She tried to save her mother, but Nault died at the scene.
The couple recently celebrated their 11th wedding anniversary.
According to the obituary posted by the Nassau Funeral Home, Nault was born in Jacksonville and graduated from West Nassau High School. Both the obituary and the fundraising account described Nault as being “an incredible example of womanhood.”
“She was a tenacious champion for the LGBTQ community. And she never met an animal she didn’t want to bring home and save from the big bad world,” Robert Nault wrote on the GoFundMe page.
To sign the family’s guest book on the Nassau Funeral Home’s website, click here.
