Father devastated after crash kills wife and 'baby girl'

VIRGINIA BEACH
John Mise climbed out of his shattered SUV Tuesday evening, retrieved his 2-year-old son from his car seat, and scooped the limp body of his 4-year-old daughter from the pavement.
 
Then he screamed, over and over and over, said Carmen Rivera, who witnessed the collision between Mise 's SUV and another vehicle.
 
"He kept saying, 'My baby girl, my baby girl, my baby girl,' " Rivera said. "The father was hysterical."
 
Mise laid the girl's body next to her mother's as they waited for paramedics to arrive, Rivera said. Both had been ejected from the vehicle during the crash at the intersection of Dam Neck Road and Corporate Landing Parkway. The mother landed in the grass.
 
Doctors were unable to save them - 4-year-old Lauren Makenzie Mise died at the scene, and her mother, 35-year-old Tanya Woodruff Mise, died at Sentara Virginia Beach General Hospital.
 
Tanya Woodruff Mise leaves behind three other children, ages 2, 8 and 15, said her sister, Wendy Lucy. John Mise and his 2-year-old son were unharmed. The other children were not in the vehicle.
 
Police say they think the other driver in the crash, a 57-year-old woman driving a 2006 Scion TC, ran a red light and struck the Mise family's 2003 GMC Yukon. The Police Department's Fatal Crash Team is investigating and charges are pending, said Officer Adam Bernstein, a police spokesman.
 
The female driver suffered minor injuries, police said.
 
Red light cameras are at three intersections on Dam Neck Road, but not at Corporate Landing Parkway.
 
Tanya Woodruff Mise was not wearing her seat belt when the Yukon rolled over several times, police said. Lauren was secured in a car seat, and police don't know how she was ejected.
 
The Mise family was visiting Virginia Beach from Emporia, where they live, Lucy said. John Mise is an animal control officer there and was taking some training classes here, she said. They decided to make it a family trip but left behind two of their children.
 
Tanya Woodruff Mise was a registered nurse studying to become a nurse practitioner, Lucy said.
 
"My sister was the most outgoing person," she said during a phone interview Wednesday. "Her life revolved around her children."
 
Lauren had just started pre-kindergarten and loved school, singing and her grandfather, Lucy said.
 
"She sang, 'Jesus Loves Me,' to me on Sunday," she said. "I'm going to miss her so much."
 
Kathy Adams, (757) 222-5155, kathy.adams@pilotonline.com