Christmas was supposed to be a time of new beginnings for Soonhoon Choi and his wife, Sara Alexis “Lexi” Waldroup. Instead, a horrific wrong-way crash on the Athens Perimeter has left a community in mourning and a family completely shattered. Just days after the collision took her husband’s life, Lexi and her unborn baby have also passed away, police confirmed Wednesday morning.
The tragedy began just after midnight on Sunday when a Kia Seltos, driven by 26-year-old Desiree Jaclyn Browning, entered the GA 10 Inner Loop heading the wrong direction. According to investigators, Browning was traveling at a high rate of speed when she clipped two vehicles before slamming head-on into the couple’s Toyota Camry near Oglethorpe Avenue. The impact was so violent that the Kia burst into flames against the highway’s cable barriers.
Soonhoon, only 25, died at the scene. Lexi was rushed to Piedmont Athens Regional Medical Center, where she remained in a medically induced coma for days. Friends and family held onto hope, praying for a Christmas miracle as doctors fought to save both the young mother and her child. In an emotional update shared on Christmas Eve, her family revealed that Lexi had fought with “unimaginable strength,” but the injuries were simply too severe.
The wrong-way driver, Browning, also died in the wreckage. Her passenger, 24-year-old Katilyn Mills, was ejected from the vehicle and remains in the hospital in serious condition. While four others involved in the initial chain-reaction collision escaped without major injuries, the loss of an entire young family has cast a dark shadow over the holiday season in Athens.
Lexi was known to her friends as a vibrant, kind soul who was over the moon about becoming a mother. She and Soonhoon were building a life together, a journey that ended in a split second of highway chaos. Now, instead of preparing for a nursery, her family is making the heartbreaking arrangements to bury a mother, a father, and a child who never got the chance to take a first breath.
The community has rallied around the grieving relatives, raising thousands of dollars through a GoFundMe page to help cover the mounting medical and funeral costs. The family expressed their deepest thanks for the local support, saying the kindness of strangers has been the only light in their darkest moments. They now plan to lay Lexi to rest right beside her husband, ensuring the couple can stay together forever.
As police continue to investigate what led Browning to drive the wrong way that night, the tragedy serves as a grim reminder of how quickly life can change. This accident marks one of the deadliest incidents on Athens roads this year, leaving a void that no amount of time will ever truly fill.
