JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A Jacksonville woman woke up Sunday to a phone call that changed her life forever: her husband had been killed in a crash on Interstate 295.
La’Kavion James, 29, died after his SUV struck the rear of a tractor-trailer stopped on the inside shoulder of I-295 southbound near Wilson Boulevard, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. Investigators say James swerved left to avoid a disabled vehicle in the center lane when the collision happened around 5:13 a.m. His SUV rotated and came to rest blocking the left travel lane, where he was pronounced dead at the scene. FHP says James was not wearing a seat belt. The 36-year-old Haines City man driving the tractor-trailer was not injured.
His wife, Tequila Wilson, described getting the news in a phone call from James brother early Sunday morning.
“You need to wake up now, something happened to Kavion,” Wilson recalled being told. “And I’m like, what is going to happen to Kavion? And he was like, Kavion died. And so I’m like, die? What do you mean he died? I was just with Kavion yesterday.”
Wilson described James as her high school sweetheart and best friend. The couple had separated at some point, but Wilson said their bond never broke.
“That was my best friend, my whole new life,” Wilson said. “Despite what we went through after our separation — we were still cool.”
The suddenness of the loss hit Wilson especially hard. She had spent time with James the night before he died.
“This is very devastating because the fact that I was with him yesterday,” Wilson said. That was literally like my last night with him.”
James leaves behind his wife, two siblings, and Wilson’s daughter, whom he continued to treat as his own.
“Even after we separated, he never stopped being there for my daughter,” Wilson said. “If I needed him for any little thing or whatever, he would be there for me. He continued to treat my daughter as his own.”
Wilson said her daughter has also been struggling with the loss.
“She’s taken it pretty hard as well,” Wilson said.
Wilson said she wants people to remember James for who he was — not just how he died.
“He was a really good person with a really big heart. He was so laid back,” she said. “If anything, I want people to remember him as a person with a big heart and that he was always there for people.”
FHP says the crash remains under investigation.
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