"It was a nightmare!"

This was how actress Tippy Dos Santos described the devastating details of her parents’ accident while on a vacation in South Korea.

Last December 26, Tippy’s parents Happy and John took a red-eye flight from the Philippines to South Korea and arrived in Incheon around 4 in the morning.

They got into an airport transfer past 5 a.m. and were on their way to the hotel but before reaching their destination, their vehicle got into an accident.

"It’s a car accident. Their vehicle hit, it wasn’t another car, but it was like an excavator or something. It was a construction vehicle," said Tippy.

Right away, Tippy got a call from her dad.

"I was asleep and my dad started calling me. I remember it (phone) was just vibrating and I answered and he just told me na your mom and I got into an accident. They were just waiting for an ambulance and I remember he told me that he was not sure that my mom was breathing. And to tell our family members what’s going on," she recalled.

Tippy immediately called and went to her sister who lives nearby while waiting for an update from her parents, who were brought to a nearby hospital in separate ambulances.

"My sister had just given birth last November so if there’s one person who can go there right away, it was me. After an hour or two, nag-book na ako ng flight and I was on a flight to Korea at 2 p.m. that day," Tippy said.

Tippy arrived in South Korea around 7 p.m., together with her aunt, her mom’s sister, and her aunt’s husband.

"My aunt was also a doctor so she was the one talking to the staff at the Korean hospital. And she told me that it is important to be able to see my mom first in the ICU before going to see my dad," she said.

Despite the strict hospital rules on number of visitors allowed in the ICU, Tippy together with her aunt were given the green light to see her mom.

"Before that they showed 'yung mga scans just showing currently what my mom state was. They allowed us to go inside the ICU and that’s when I was able to see my mom," Tippy recalled.

According to the doctors, Tippy’s dad suffered five to six fractured ribs and minor abdominal injury/trauma, while her mom suffered rib bleeding, fractures and a head injury. As far as Tippy can recall the initial findings, her mom had brain edema, describing it as "everything was just so swollen (in her head)."

"She was unconscious and 'yung katawan niya, you can see that it was badly injured but what was most heartbreaking the first time I saw her was how she’s not responsive and her tongue was just out and she was on a ventilator. That was just the most heartbreaking thing to see and the doctors told us that she had a respiratory arrest and that’s why she was unable to breath for a time, that’s why she was in a coma," said Tippy.

Tippy added: "In the three or four times that I was able to see her, we, all of us family members, just tried to tell her what we would all want to tell her. The next day, my sister also flew in from the Philippines and we were all able to kind of speak to her when she was in the ICU."

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At first, communicating with the medical personnel was a challenge for the family but with the help of the Philippine Embassy in Seoul, they were given a translator to assist them with everything that they needed to communicate. The embassy also helped them with other things including the ongoing investigation of the accident. Meanwhile, her dad continued to recover in a separate building within the hospital compound.

On December 29, the doctors told the family that Happy needs to be sedated again because of the continued swelling. The sedation was scheduled up to Tuesday of the following week until the swelling subsides.

"But on the morning of the 30th, Saturday, my sister got a call that we are being called to go to the hospital. As soon as possible. When we arrived at the hospital, they said that my mom, her pulse was going down and nag-stop na 'yung breathing niya for nine seconds. But that they were able to revive her, but her BP (blood pressure) was really down," she said.

This was when the doctors told them about the bad news.

"And then they told us that there was really no hope for her because after that they had taken a scan and there was no brain stem activity. And that there was no hope. That she was not gonna recover from the injury. And that’s when they asked us to prepare and to really just wait," Tippy recalled.

Tippy broke down into tears saying that what happened to her mom was unfair.

"My mom was full of life and none of us are ready to lose my mom. Not just our family you know, my dad was married to my mom for almost 37 years, my sister just had a baby. I just moved to a house near her house, and not just her immediate family but so many people love my mom. So many people know how great of a person she is, she is so much light, joy and happiness," she said.

Tippy added about her mom: "She is an incredible wife, mother and friend, and a sister and she loved everyone around her, everyone she met. She deserved better. She deserved better than to be in a coma and to possibly die that way. How I wish we had just more time para makapagpasalamat at makapagsabi na mahal namin siya."

Tippy's mom passed away at exactly 11:47 a.m. of December 30 because of a traumatic brain injury.

Plans to bring her mom home back to the Philippines is underway.

"Right now we are working on making sure that her body is ready to be taken home. We’ve been ready to take her home, we’re just waiting here and preparing 'yung flight niya pauwi ng Pilipinas. And we’re eager to bring her home before her birthday on January 5," Tippy said.

Before the interview with ABS-CBN News, Tippy and her family just arrived from the police station. Currently, the South Korean police is investigating the accident.

Tippy mentioned that her mom was asleep when the accident happened while seated in the passenger seat at the back of the car and properly belted.

"We cannot disclose the investigation right now, but they’re doing everything they can to help and get to the bottom of what happened to my mom," she said.

Her dad, she said, was totally devastated bearing the physical and emotional scars of the accident.

"My dad is not young. So, to have to recover from the fractured ribs and everything, mas nangingibabaw sa kanya 'yung emotional pain. 'Yung emotional pain niya, he is so devastated," Tippy revealed.

"And this is just really a nightmare for everyone. It’s like a pain no one can explain or can be able to describe to express. It’s really traumatic and it’s a nightmare. You’re waking up and realizing it’s true. Then you realize it’s true and then 10 seconds parang ‘could it not be true’, you can’t escape what’s going on around you," Tippy added.

Tippy and her family would like to express their deepest gratitude and appreciation to all those who sent their messages of sympathies and condolences to their family.

"We are grateful for all the messages and the posts about our mom, just sharing how wonderful she is. Please continue to share those posts. Please continue to just share about my mom whether it be online or not. And to just share about her goodness," she said.

"As my father was saying earlier while were talking, from here on out, if we could just tell everybody to ensure that you tell your loved ones you love them. You make sure you help them through life, you tell them you show them that you love them, you don’t know when life is going to end and when it’s going to be your last conversation with your loved ones."

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