Ashley Ballester, 19-year-old Springfield mother, killed in hit-and-run accident, remembered as great mother, great daughter

The accident that took the life of Ashley Ballester very nearly also took the life of her daughter, Lailani, who is not quite 2 years old.

SPRINGFIELD - Ashley Ballester always enjoyed caring for people and that is why she wanted to be a nurse.

Ballester, 19, was in the process of filling out the paperwork needed to start her first semester at American International College in the fall where she was accepted into the nursing program.

She’ll never get the chance; Ballester was killed Friday night when she was struck by a hit-and-run driver on Sumner Avenue near Lester Street.

The accident also nearly took the life of her not-quite 2-year-old daughter Lailani, who was tossed from her baby carriage in the collision and landed on the side of the road.

Gloria Ballester, the mother of Ashley and grandmother of Lailani, said she does not have the words to describe what it is like to lose a daughter and almost a granddaughter at the same moment.

The entire family is devastated, she said. “I feel...I can’t even describe what I am feeling,” she said.

Since Saturday morning, their lives have revolved around making funeral arraignments, receiving condolences from friends and visiting Lailani in the hospital.

Lailani remains in the pediatric intensive care unit at Baystate Medical Center, but Gloria Ballester said she is showing signs of improvement. She suffered some broken ribs, a collapsed lung and an abrasion to her liver. She also needed 25 staples to close a gash in her head, she said.

On Tuesday morning, Gloria Ballester intends to go to district court for the arraignment of Michael Wingfield, the man accused of driving the car that stuck Ashley and Lailani and then fleeing the scene.

Wingfield, 35, of 30 Longfellow Terrace and 70 Harrison Ave., is charged with motor vehicle homicide, negligent operation of a motor vehicle, leaving the scene of a personal injury accident, leaving the scene of a personal injury accident that results in death, using a motor vehicle without authority and driving a motor vehicle with a revoked license.

Wingfield surrendered himself to police at police headquarters just after 9 a.m. Monday.

Gloria Ballester said she hopes he is punished by the courts.

“Most definitely,” she said.

“He deserves to pay for it,” she said. “It was an accident, but it stopped being an accident as soon as he left.”

Gloria Ballester said she learned her daughter had been killed while she herself was at Baystate Medical Center being treated for an undisclosed condition.

She said she had been at the hospital from 11 a.m. Friday until 2 a.m. Saturday. At around 1 a.m., hospital staff came in to tell her about the accident. 

Ashley, she said, was a sweet person, always pleasant and friendly.

“She was a great mother and she made sure her first priority was her child,” Gloria said. “She was a great daughter.”

Ashley spent the last few hours before her death at the Holyoke Mall in Ingleside shopping for presents for Lailani’s upcoming 2nd birthday party.

Going to and from the mall meant taking the bus, and shortly after 8 p.m. the bus let Ashley and Lailani off at the Bryant Street bus stop, diagonally across Sumner from her family’s home on Lester Street, Gloria Ballester said.

The stop is at the almost exact midpoint between the two nearest crosswalks on Sumner Avenue, at the “X” to the west and White Street to the east.

Both crosswalks are at intersections where there are traffic signals. Regardless of which way she chose, it would mean walking up the street, crossing and then reversing direction on the other side. Going to either crosswalk meant adding another half-mile of walking onto what was probably already a pretty tiring afternoon.

Or she could just cut across the four lanes of Sumner to Lester Street, a distance of about 200 feet, and be home. She opted to cross Sumner and paid for it with her life, and very nearly with the life of her daughter.

Residents of the neighborhood said they see people crossing Sumner just as Ashley did every day at all hours.

In the span of a few moments a reporter with The Republican witnessed two people crossing Sumner, dodging between cars coming in both directions.

The absence of crosswalks and the overabundance of speeding traffic at all hours makes for a dangerous combination.

“They won’t stop,” said one man who did not wish to give his name. “If I’m out on my bike and a car’s coming, they won’t stop. They’re not going to stop at all.”

Gloria Ballester said Sumner Avenue has too few crosswalks, and that encourages people to jaywalk - like her daughter did.

The combination of few crosswalks, speeding cars and other problems, such as non-working street lights, are only going to lead to more tragedies along Sumner Avenue, she said.

“I would like to see the city of Springfield do something to get more crosswalks, fix the missing lights and do something about the speeders,” she said. “People speed down the street like it's a race track.”

View Scene of fatal pedestrian accident on Sumner Avenue, July 27 in a larger map
Key: Red Flag is the scene of the accident. Blue Flag is PVTA bus stop where Ashley Ballester and her daughter disembarked. Green flags are the closest cross walks to the bus stop.