Outside the QuikTrip at K-15 and Meadowlark in Derby sits a small cross. It is a memorial to 3-year-old Harper Ivy, who was killed in a fiery explosion Monday.

Tami Portela lives right near the QT and saw the fire when it first started. "It went from kind of like like a grayish smoke that was going straight up in the air and then finally when it exploded, everything turned black."

The fire and explosion also injured Ivy's mother, 31-year-old Stephanie Corey. The Derby police department confirmed the names to KAKE Tuesday morning.

Portela says as soon as the car caught fire, she saw two men pull Corey from the car. "I knew that there had to have been a baby or a kid or her husband and it just, that's a mama's scream, and so she just kept continually screaming and it was horrible."

A GoFundMe set up to help the family says Corey is now in a medically induced coma for the next three weeks but she is stable.

Derby police say this all happened when a car driving on Meadowlark lost control and crashed into a gas pump, causing the explosion and fire. Portela says she's had what happened last night replay in her head all day.

"It seemed like an eternity because I just kept carrying her screaming but at some point, she quit screaming, so I don't know if she passed out or if, you know, she just kind of came to a realization of what happened but it's haunting."

The GoFundMe quickly reached its original goal of $25,000 and is well on its way to the new benchmark of 50 thousand as of Tuesday evening. Portela says that doesn't surprise her after seeing the reaction to what happened on social media Monday night.

"I think that how quickly that GoFundMe has shown, I mean, it's a monetary version of the emotion that everyone wants to put forth on this family and the prayers."

 
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